Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Congress Volume Leiden 2004 Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Edited by the Board of Quarterly h.m. barstad – r.p. g...

Author: Andre Lemaire

32 downloads 1174 Views 4MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Congress Volume Leiden 2004

Supplements to

Vetus Testamentum Edited by the Board of Quarterly

h.m. barstad – r.p. gordon – a. hurvitz g. knoppers – a. van der kooij – a. lemaire c. newsom – h. spieckermann – j. trebolle barrera h.g.m. williamson

VOLUME 109

The President: Prof. Dr. Arie van der Kooij

Congress Volume Leiden 2004 Edited by

André Lemaire

BRILL LEIDEN · BOSTON 2006

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ISSN 0083-5889 ISBN-13 978 90 04 14913 7 ISBN-10 90 04 14913 9 © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Arie van der Kooij, Presidential address: The City of Babel and Assyrian Imperialism: Genesis 11:1–9 Interpreted in the Light of Mesopotamian Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 George J. Brooke, The Twelve Minor Prophets and the Dead Sea Scrolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Cécile Dogniez, La reconstruction du Temple selon la Septante de Zacharie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Adrian Schenker, Die Textgeschichte der Königsbücher und ihre Konsequenzen für die Textgeschichte der hebräischen Bible, illustriert am Beispiel von 2 Kön 23:1–3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Zeev Herzog, Beersheba Valley Archaeology and its Implications for the Biblical Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Matthias Köckert, Die Geschichte der Abrahamüberlieferung . . . 103 Nadav Na"aman, The Temple Library of Jerusalem and the Composition of the Book of Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Ed Noort, Der reißende Wolf: Josua in Überlieferung und Geschichte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Graham I. Davies, “God” in Old Testament Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Jean-Marie Husser, Scribes inspirés et écrits célestes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Carol A. Newsom, Rhyme and Reason: The Historical Résumé in Israelite and Early Jewish Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Jean-Marie Auwers, Anciens et modernes face au Cantique des cantiques. Un impossible dialogue ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Christo H.J. van der Merwe, Biblical Exegesis, Cognitive Linguistics and Hypertext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Bernard M. Levinson, The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 J.S.Y. Pahk, The Role and Signiﬁcance of dbry h. ps. (Qoh. 12:10a) for understanding Qohelet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Ellen van Wolde, Towards an ‘Integrated Approach’ in Biblical Studies, Illustrated with a Dialogue between Job 28 and Job 38 355

vi

contents

appendix Session ‘World Christianity and the Study of the Old Testament’ J. Severino Croatto, Reading the Pentateuch as a Counter-Text: A new interpretation of Genesis 1:14–19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 André Kabasele Mukenge, Lire la Bible dans le contexte africain. Approche et perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 Craig Y.S. Ho, The Cross-Textual Method and the J Stories in Genesis in the Light of a Chinese Philosophical Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 John Barton, Responses to Kabasele Mukenge and Craig Y.S. Ho 441 Index (Bible and Ancient Literature) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

PREFACE

The XVIIIth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) was held in Leiden from 1 to 6 August 2004 under the Presidency of Professor Arie van der Kooij. Konrad D. Jenner was Congress Secretary. It was preceded by the IVth Congress of the International Organization for Targum Studies (held 29–30 July), the XIIth Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (held 30–31 July), and the XVIIIth Congress of the International Organization for Masoretic Studies (held 2–3 August). The editor of this volume is grateful to the Organizing Committee, all of the invited lecturers, and Brill Academic Publishers for their collaboration in readying this Congress Volume for publication as quickly as possible. It will help all the participants to remember the Leiden Congress not only as a scientiﬁc but also as a pleasant and memorable event. A. Lemaire

THE CITY OF BABEL AND ASSYRIAN IMPERIALISM GENESIS 11:1–9 INTERPRETED IN THE LIGHT OF MESOPOTAMIAN SOURCES Arie van der Kooij I. Introduction The stories about primeval times in Genesis 1–11 abound in motifs and traditions which are of Mesopotamian origin. The most telling example is, of course, the Flood narrative. In this opening lecture I will deal with Gen 11:1–9, commonly designated as the story of the Tower of Babel, as well as with a related passage in Gen 10 that is concerned with Nimrod and Mesopotamia (vv. 8–12). The choice of Gen 11:1–9 may seem appropriate since it explains why I have to deliver my opening lecture to an international meeting in a language which is not my native one. It is my purpose to deal with the interpretation of Gen 11:1–9 in two respects: (a) by discussing the issue of literary unity, on the one hand, and (b) by reading the text in the light of Mesopotamian sources, on the other. The emphasis will be on the latter, because the text itself draws our attention to Mesopotamia, as is also the case with Gen 10:8–12. Moreover, up to now this aspect has not been dealt with in much detail.

II. The issue of the literary unity As to the question of whether Gen 11:1–9 is a literary unity, or not, opinions diﬀer. Some consider the text of this story a literary unity, others do not, and those who do not, oﬀer divergent solutions. Some are of the opinion that the story is the result of (two) parallel texts (recensions), whilst others hold the view that an original version of the story has been reworked, be it once or more than once. Thus, the situation concerning our text is most confusing which, in a sense, ﬁts the contents of the story. The issues at stake are not so much related to a diﬀerence in terminology and language as is the case between a priestly and non-priestly

2

arie van der kooij

style of writing, but concern matters of ‘coherence’. In this lecture I will discuss the following issues which seem to be the main ones: 1. 2. 3. 4.

the relationship between the motif of ‘city’ and that of ‘tower’; the question of the twofold descent of God; the relationship between v. 7 and v. 8; the question of whether the motif of dispersion is of a secondary nature.

(1) As is well-known, Gunkel advanced the view that the text as it stands contains two versions, a city-recension and a tower-recension.1 Other scholars have argued that both elements are to be seen as two motifs which may diﬀer in origin (in terms of oral transmission), but which make sense together in the text.2 Others still regard an early version of the building of the tower as the base-text that has been reworked and expanded in terms of a city story,3 or the other way around.4 However, the idea of building a literary critical analysis on the city and the tower as two separate motifs is not convincing. Recently scholars have argued, and rightly so, that ‘city’ and ‘tower’ belong together as this is fully in line with ancient Mesopotamian culture.5 Consequently, it is not appropriate to label our story as being about the tower of Babel. Rather, it is a story about the city of Babel (hence the title of this lecture).6 (2) The question of the twofold descent of God. In v. 5 we read that YHWH ‘came down (ãøéå) to see the city and the tower which was being built by men’, whereas in v. 7 the Lord states, ‘Let us go down (äãøð)’. This seems to be a doublet, and thus an argument to be used for a literary critical analysis of the text. But, in this case too, there is no compelling reason to conclude that there is any discontinuity in the

H. Gunkel, Genesis, HKI,1 (Göttingen, 1901). See e.g. C. Westermann, Genesis, BK I/1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1976). 3 See C. Rose, “Nochmals: Der Turmbau zu Babel,” VT 54 (2004), pp. 232–233. 4 See e.g. G. Wallis, “Die Stadt in den Uberlieferungen der Genesis,” ZAW 78 (1966), pp. 141–144; L. Ruppert, Genesis. 1. Teilband: Gen. 1,1–11,26 (Würzburg, 1992), pp. 485–494. 5 Cf. C. Uehlinger, Weltreich und “eine Rede”. Eine neue Deutung der sogenannten Turmbauerzählung (Gen 11,1–9), OBO 101 (Freiburg/Göttingen, 1990), pp. 314, 377. See also C. Levin, Der Jahwist, FRLANT 157 (Göttingen, 1993), p. 128; M. Witte, Die biblische Urgeschichte. Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26, BZAW 265 (Berlin, 1998), p. 91 Anm. 56. 6 Cf. Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 372. 1 2

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

3

story. First, v. 5 is about YHWH alone, whereas the phrase in v. 7 refers to YHWH and the members of the divine council.7 Secondly, according to v. 5 the Lord came down “to see etc.” Westermann is of the opinion that v. 5 is about “ein direktes Eingreifen gegen den Bau”.8 However, just as in Gen 18:21, the expression “to come down to see” means that the Lord came down for inspection, like a judge (cf. Gen 18:25), in order to know what is going on. Vv. 6–7 then contain his report and the plan of action he recommends to the divine council.9 (3) The third issue which is often raised, concerns the relationship between v. 7 and v. 8. The diﬃculty here is that v. 8 does not correspond to v. 7: the latter verse has it that the language of men will be confused, whereas the former tells us that the Lord dispersed them all over the earth. So the order of actions creates a diﬃculty. Read in a straightforward way, the logical order of the actions seems strange indeed, but this reading does not take into account the stylistic aspects of the passage of vv. 8–9. Both verses display a nice balance: v. 8a v. 8b v. 9aa v. 9ab v. 9b

A B C B A

motif of dispersion leaving oﬀ the building activities name of Babel confusion of language motif of dispersion

The underlying logical order—confusion of language, leaving oﬀ the building of the city, naming the city, being dispersed all over the earth— is expressed in a particular stylistic and structural way: v. 8a (A) and v. 9b (A) form an inclusion, which clearly underlines the motif of dispersion. So, in order to establish this inclusion the motif of dispersion had to be mentioned ﬁrst in v. 8a. B and B are clearly related to each other because the stopping of the building activities is the direct consequence of the confusion of the language. Since this latter motif functions as the explanation of the name of the city, it is mentioned in B and not in B.10 For “us” in the sense of the divine council, see e.g. Witte, Urgeschichte, pp. 88–89. Westermann, Genesis, p. 719. Witte speaks of a “Theophanie” (Urgeschichte, p. 93). 9 For another suggestion, see Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 313. 10 For the naming of the city introduced by ïë ìò, followed by a clause introduced by íÖ éë, see Gen 21:31. 7 8

4

arie van der kooij

(4) In connexion with this—third—issue, there is another question to be considered, namely, the well-known theory that the motif of dispersion in v. 4b, 8a and 9b should be seen as an expansion to an earlier story. In line with Seybold and Bost, Uehlinger regards the clauses containing the verb õåô as secondary, for two reasons: (a) they are marked by what is called “terminologische Stereotypie”, and (b) these clauses are “syntaktisch nur locker mit ihrem Kontext verbunden”.11 In his view, these “glosses” are meant to connect Gen 9:19 (“their descendants spread [äöôð] over all the earth”) and the pre-priestly table of nations (Gen 10*), on the one hand, with an early version of Gen 11:1–9, on the other. “Die “Glossen” implizieren …… die Anerkennung der genealogischen Zerstreuung als eines nach der Flut ordnungsgemässen Zustandes, gegen den sich das Projekt der Menschen in Gen 11,1–9 explizit sperren will”.12 Witte too is of the opinion that the clauses are to be seen as additions, as part of a post-priestly redaction. Unlike P (10:5, 32) where the neutral verb ãøô is used for the dispersion of the nations, the clauses in Gen 11 reﬂect a usage of õåô which is marked by a negative connotation conveying the idea of punishment by God, to be compared with texts such as Dtn 4:27; 28:64; 30:3. Thus, unlike P the clauses in Gen 11 testify to an interpretation of the dispersion of the nations “als Folge eines Strafhandelns Jahwes”.13 In addition, there is a clear diﬀerence of meaning here, so he argues, between õåô in Gen 11, on the one hand, and (the related verb) õôð in 9:19 on the other, because the latter is, as ãøô in Gen 10, a term conveying a neutral (“wertfrei”) connotation. Both scholars share the view that the clauses about the dispersion are of a secondary nature, but both do so on diﬀerent grounds.14 Issues at stake are the matter of terminology, of syntax, and of the connotation of the verb concerned.15 The clauses in vv. 4, 8, 9 display a particular idiom, but this is hardly a reason to consider them as secondary. This also applies to the matter of syntax since one wonders why those clauses should be seen as loosely connected with their context. As I have argued above, in vv. 8–9 the Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 308. Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 327 Anm. 166. 13 Witte, Urgeschichte, p. 90. 14 See e.g. also Levin, Jahwist, pp. 129–130. 15 There is, of course, also the issue of the redaction critical relationship between Gen 11:1–9 and the preceding chapters (Gen 9–10), but this falls outside the scope of this paper. 11 12

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

5

motif of dispersion has been expressed by way of an inclusion which sheds light on the relationship between v. 7 and v. 8a. But what about v. 4b? This verse tells us that mankind decided to build a city with a high tower and by doing all this to make a name for themselves, that is to say, to realize a position of power and fame. V. 4b then explains that this decision was motivated by the argument “lest (ïô) we be dispersed all over the earth”. Uehlinger is of the opinion that the clause, “and we shall make a name for ourselves”, should be seen as the purpose of the building project. This makes sense, but it does not exclude the possibility of an additional, underlying concern as is formulated in v. 4b. From a compositional point of view it strikes one that the motif of dispersion has a crucial place in Gen 11:1–9. The story as it stands has two parts, vv. 1–4, about man, and vv. 5–9, about God’s reaction to the action of mankind (see also below). In both cases the verb õåô is found at the end of each section. Mankind built a strong city, with a high tower, in order not to be dispersed (vv. 1–4), and God eventually did disperse mankind all over the earth. The inclusion in vv. 8–9 strongly suggests that the matter of dispersion was held to be most important. Apparently, the story as it stands is meant to explain why mankind is living spread out over all the earth. Thus, the story is marked by a strong contrast between the building project on the one hand, and the matter of dispersion, on the other. Most important in this respect are vv. 6–9: the city-project of mankind is presented in these verses as the building of a position of unlimited power.16 They are able to do this since they are “one people” with “one and the same language” (v. 6). Mankind is depicted in our story as being highly interested in a position of supreme power by building a strong city to live in. The concern expressed in v. 4b is that living spread over the earth would not serve their purpose.17 It is just the opposite of living in one big city.

16 For the statement in v. 6 (“nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them”) compare Job 42:2. 17 It has been argued that v. 4b, if read in the context of Gen 1–11 as a whole, is to be understood as a transgression of the commandment that man should ﬁll the earth. See C. Houtman, “… opdat wij niet over geheel de aarde verspreid worden. Notities over Genesis 11:1–9,” NTT 31 (1977), p. 106, and P.J. Harland, “Vertical or horizontal: the sin of Babel,” VT 48 (1998). pp. 527–532 (“Reading J and P together”). This may be so, but the story as being part of a pre-priestly stratum creates a diﬀerent picture, since there the decision that mankind should live spread over the earth is taken by God in the light of the building of Babel.

6

arie van der kooij

This leads to the intriguing question whether the dispersion should be taken as a form of punishment, as scholars have argued, or not. Does the verb õåô convey a negative connotation as in texts like Dtn 4:27; 28:64; 30:3? I do not think so. The situation in Gen 11 is diﬀerent from that in the texts just mentioned. In the latter, a particular people, the people of Israel, is dispersed as a result of violent actions of powerful enemies, whereas in Gen 11 the dispersion is the result of the confusion of a common language, that is to say, mankind is no longer one people with one language, but has become many peoples, each with their own language. Thus, the confusion of language is a subtle, but eﬀective means of reaching a particular goal, namely, that mankind will live spread out over all the earth. It therefore is not so obvious to regard the element of dispersion as a punishment. But what about the building project? If this is to be considered as sin, then the dispersion carries the notion of punishment. Most scholars hold the view that the city project should be seen as sin, as hubris.18 It is true that the building of the city and the high tower symbolizes a most powerful position of man, but the judgment of God, in v. 6, seems not to reﬂect the idea of bad behaviour. Rather, as is clear from vv. 6–7, since they are one people with one language they have the possibility of creating a position of unlimited power, a form of power which is similar to that of God himself. This does not come as a surprise since it is in line with man’s position as formulated by God himself in Gen 3:22: “The man has become like one of us”. In my view, the story in Gen 11 is not about sin and punishment.19 The measure taken by God is part of the destinies determined in primeval times which, in line with Mesopotamian mode of thought, are meant as explanations of the world order as it is.20 In Gen 11 the explanation is given of why the divine decision was taken that man should speak diﬀerent languages and, as a result, should live spread out over the whole earth. In this way, God set limits to the power of man. Seen this way the verb õåô does not convey a negative connotation; its usage is in keeping with Gen 9:19 (related verb [õôð]) and 10:18.

18 For a survey, see Uehlinger, Weltreich, pp. 254–290. See also Harland, “Sin of Babel,” pp. 515–533. 19 Cf. Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 575; E. van Wolde, Words become Worlds. Semantic Studies of Genesis 1–11, Biblical Interpretation Series, 6 (Leiden, 1994), pp. 100–104. 20 See H.W.F. Saggs, The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel (London, 1978), pp. 74–76.

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

7

In brief, as far as literary criticism is concerned, there are no compelling reasons to consider the text of Gen 11:1–9 as the result of two recensions, nor as the outcome of a basic story which has been expanded at a later stage, or stages. The story as it stands presents itself as a coherent text. This does not only apply to the contents of the text, as stated above, but also to the stylistic aspects of it. As has been argued by scholars in the last four decades,21 seen from the literary point of view the text of our story displays a wellconsidered structure which suggests a well-thought-out composition. As said before, the text has two parts, vv. 1–4, containing the action of man, and vv. 5–9, about the reaction of God. V. 5 forms the axis of the story, “the inverted hinge” as it has been termed by Van Dyke Parunak.22 The story is further characterized by the repetition of particular words and other stylistic features which need not be discussed here.23 The story as it stands can be seen as a coherent text, both stylistically and conceptually. But, although the story is marked by an internal logic, one wonders why the several motifs—the issue of one language, the building of a city with a tower, the creation of many languages, and the spreading out of man all over the earth—have been put together. What may have been the signiﬁcance of all this at the time the story was composed? So the question arises of why the building of a city with a tower is considered an illustration of supreme power. Furthermore, what may have been the signiﬁcance of the contrast between the building of the city and the motif of spreading out of man over the whole earth. In order to deal with these and similar questions I will now approach our text from a broader perspective by reading the story in the light of Mesopotamian sources.

21 See, e.g., J.P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis. Specimens of Stylistic and Structural Analysis, SSN 17 (Assen, 1975), pp. 11–45; P. Auﬀret, La sagesse a bâti sa maison. Études de structures littéraires dans l’Ancient Testament et spécialement dans les psaumes, OBO 49 (Fribourg/Göttingen, 1982), pp. 71–90; Van Wolde, Words, pp. 84–89; Witte, Urgeschichte, pp. 95–97. 22 H. van Dyke Parunak, “Transitional Techniques in the Bible,” JBL 102 (1983), p. 543. 23 For the issue of the relationship between the stylistic structures and the matter of the content of the story, see Van Wolde, Words, pp. 89–94.

8

arie van der kooij III. An interpretation in the light of Mesopotamian sources

The work of Uehlinger, entitled Weltreich und “eine Rede”, is the most important contribution to the study of Gen 11:1–9 to date with respect to a reading of our story in the light of Mesopotamian sources. It is the ﬁrst one in which the question of the relationship between the story and the culture and history of Mesopotamia has been dealt with in great detail.24 Having reconstructed what he considers the original version of the story he then pays special attention to the motif of “one speech” (“eine Rede”) in verses 1 and 6, which, in his view, is not so much denoting one language, but rather unanimity. In a long and rich part of his work (Ch. ix [pp. 406–513]) it is argued that this motif actually reﬂects a well-known expression in royal texts from Mesopotamia, viz. pû iˇst¯en, “one mouth”. It is often stated, particularly in royal inscriptions in the period from Tukulti-Ninurta I up to and including those of Sargon II, that the king “caused” nations and countries “to have one mouth” (pâ iˇst¯en sˇuˇskunu), i.e. made them speak with one voice, in the sense of being subservient to one authority, the Assyrian king (cf. Von Soden, AHw, “machte (die Länder) eines Sinnes”). The use of this motif is part of the imperialistic ideology of some Assyrian kings (“Herrschaftstopos”, as Uehlinger calls it). On the basis of a comparison between this and other motifs—the building of a city and tower, the making of a name, the notion of “one people”—in the reconstructed version of Gen 11:1–9 on the one hand, and Mesopotamian political ideology on the other, Uehlinger draws the conclusion that the story is best understood as reﬂecting and criticizing New Assyrian ideology and rhetoric of world dominion. In view of the fact that the story ends up with the stopping of the building of the city Uehlinger argues that the building of Dur-Sharrukin by Sargon II, and the fact that the building of this city was not ﬁnished after the mysterious death of the king (in 705 BC) is to be seen as the historical background and setting to the original version of Gen 11:1–9. In his view, the early version of Gen 11:1–9 was not yet part of the pre-priestly Urgeschichte, but represented a so-called “construed myth”, a myth which, in this case, oﬀers a theological reﬂection of the building of Dur-Sharrukin.

24 For earlier contributions to the subject, see Uehlinger, Weltreich, p. 230. The diﬃculty of these contributions is that their focus was mainly on the tower and not on the city (with a tower).

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

9

This is a very stimulating theory, but it also raises questions concerning the following points: (a) the original story as reconstructed by him is stripped of speciﬁc details referring to Mesopotamia, such as the name of the country (Shinar) and of the city (Babel), and (b) the motif of one speech should be taken, in his view, in the sense of unanimity rather than in the sense of one language. Since, as argued above, there are no compelling reasons to doubt the literary unity of Gen 11:1–9 the question arises of what the result may be of a comparison between Mesopotamian data and the story as it stands. Furthermore, the motif of “one speech” in Gen 11 does not only convey the notion of unanimity, but also that of one language.25 I share Uehlinger’s view that the combination of several motifs in Gen 11:1–9 makes good sense indeed, if understood as reﬂecting, in one way or another, the building of Dur-Sharrukin by Sargon II in the ﬁnal decade of the eighth century BC. This applies to the building of a strong26 city with a high tower, to making a name for oneself, and to the element of stopping the building of the city. The building of DurSharrukin, the new capital, was not ﬁnished because of the ominous death of Sargon II in the year 705 BC. The making oneself a name—a well-known topos in royal inscriptions of Assyria—conveys the notion of power and fame, but it might well be that its relationship with the building of the city mirrors the fact that the city of Dur- Sharrukin was named after its builder, King Sharrukin (Sargon). More interestingly, the elements, in the Genesis story, of mankind as one people with one speech in relation to a new city, resemble a particular topic that is characteristic of inscriptions from Dur-Sharrukin. The text reads thus, Peoples of the four regions of the world, of foreign tongue and divergent speech, dwellers of mountain and lowland, …, I took as spoil at the word of Ashur, my lord, by the might of my scepter. I caused them to have ‘one mouth’ and settled them therein (i.e. the new capital).27

According to this passage peoples of diﬀerent languages living all over the earth are brought together into one place, the new city of Dur25 Cf. my review article, “The Story of Genesis 11:1–9 and the Culture of Ancient Mesopotamia,” BiOr 53 (1996), cols 28–38. See also H. Seebaß, Genesis I: Urgeschichte (1,1–11,26) (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1996), p. 281. 26 For the notion of “strong,” cf. the use of baked bricks in v. 3 instead of dried ones. 27 For a recent edition of the texts from Dur-Sharrukin, see A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad (Göttingen, 1994). The passage quoted above is to be found on pp. 43, 47 f. [shorter version], 72, 79f. (translation on pp. 296, 298, 306, 311, respectively). See also Uehlinger, Weltreich, pp. 470–471.

10

arie van der kooij

Sharrukin. Furthermore, all peoples should speak with one voice which means, as noted above, that they accept one authority, namely, that of the king of Assyria who claimed to be the king of the world. In a way, all peoples should be one people. One touches here on a policy of globalisation avant la lettre. As becomes clear from the inscriptions from the new city, the building of Dur-Sharrukin symbolized the supreme power in the sense of world dominion of Sargon II. This too sheds light on the fact that in the Genesis story the building of a city with a tower is considered an illustration of supreme power. However, the question arises of how to account for the diﬀerences, that is to say, for the fact that our story is about “one speech” not only in the sense of unanimity, but also of one language, as well as for the fact that it is a story about Babel. The answer is that the Genesis story is a narrative which is set in primeval times. Babel is one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia (cf. Gen 10:10) and as such ﬁts very well into a story in ancient times. The choice of this city has also the advantage of being appropriate for the word-play between “Babel” and the verb b¯alal, “to confuse”. Furthermore, the motif of explaining the change from one language into many languages is also a topic which suits a story set in primeval times. In addition, this also sheds light on the fact that it is about mankind, and not about a king. So I would suggest that Gen 11:1–9 is a story about the early days of mankind which has been composed in such a way that it mirrors major events and ideological claims known from the last decade of the eighth century BC. It may be compared to a coin having two sides, resulting from a technique which is widespread in world literature, viz. of setting a story in the past, and yet speaking about the present. It is based on the idea of a certain analogy between events in the past and in the present. It is interesting to note that this phenomenon has parallels in the time of Sargon II: at his court texts were composed about the early history of Sargon of Akkad which are clearly alluding to the time of Sargon II.28 The story about the city of Babel in Gen 11 seems to belong to such a category of literature. Babel is Babel, but 28 See A.K. Grayson, “The Empire of Sargon of Akkad,” AfO 25 (1974–1977), pp. 56–64; B. Lewis, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero who was exposed at Birth, ASOR DS 4 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 101–107; Uehlinger, Weltreich, pp. 496–503; W. Horowitz, “Moab and Edom in the Sargon Geography,” IEJ 43 (1993), pp. 151–156.

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

11

can then be seen in analogy with a city like Dur-Sharrukin; mankind as being one people with one language making the attempt to realize a position of supreme power by building the city of Babel can be viewed then in analogy with Sargon II’s striving for world domination which culminated in the building of Dur-Sharrukin and in making all peoples of “one speech”. There is, however, one element which still needs our attention, the motif of dispersion. As we have seen, this motif is crucial because it marks the end of the striving for supreme power. Read against the background of Assyrian politics it mirrors, in a contrasting way, a crucial element of these politics, viz. bringing peoples together into one area, and more in particular into one city according to the inscriptions from Dur Sharrukin, by means of mass deportations.29 Seen from the perspective of our story, Sargon II made an attempt to realize a situation where people and power were concentrated into one place as it was in the beginning. But seen from the same perspective Sargon II was violating the international order as set by God according to Gen 11, namely that all peoples should live spread out over the earth. Thus, the motif of dispersion makes perfect sense in the story if read in the light of Assyrian politics of mass deportations. IV. Genesis 10:8–12 I now would like to draw the attention to the story about Nimrod and Mesopotamia in Gen 10:8–12, in order to see whether it may throw light on the interpretation of Gen 11:1–9 as outlined above. It reads thus: Cush became the father of Nimrod: he was the ﬁrst on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord”. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Kalneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went out to Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, that is the great city.

29

On this subject see e.g. B. Oded, Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden, 1979).

12

arie van der kooij

As to the relationship between this passage and the story of Gen 11 opinions diﬀer,30 but it is clear that both have some elements in common, namely, the land of Shinar, the city of Babel, and the motif of city building. The last item is a most ﬁtting characterization of Mesopotamian culture, especially of the kings of Assyria. The ﬁgure of Nimrod plays a prominent role in the passage. As to the name itself an identiﬁcation with Ninurta is the most reasonable one.31 He is not presented here as a god, but as a king, in line with the royal characteristics of Mesopotamia. The motif of a king as a mighty hunter is a well-known topic in royal inscriptions of Assyria, not of Babylonia. As Oppenheim put it, “Nimrod, “the mighty hunter”, was an Assyrian king”.32 The topic is attested in inscriptions from TiglathPileser I (1114–1076) onwards, and is related to the ﬁgure of Ninurta. So e.g., By the command of the god Ninurta, who loves me, I killed on foot 120 lions with my wildly vigorous assault. … I have brought down every kind of wild beast and winged bird of the heavens whenever I have shot an arrow.33

Scholars have tried to identify Nimrod with a single monarch of Mesopotamian history, but this does not seem to be a relevant question, because in the passage as a whole his name does not refer to one king. Rather, Nimrod functions as a symbolic name for Mesopotamian kings in general, ﬁrst in ancient Babylonia, then, at a much later stage, in Assyria (see also below). The second part of the passage, vv. 10–12, is dominated by the listing of several cities, four in the land of Shinar, and four in Assyria, respectively. The beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod is described in terms of four cities in the land of Shinar: Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Kalneh. These are ancient cities in the south of Mesopotamia— 30 This concerns the question of whether the passage in Gen 10 is of the same author as the story of Gen 11. See e.g. Witte, Urgeschichte, pp. 98–99. 31 Cf. W.G. Lambert, “Assyrien und Israel,” TRE IV (Berlin, 1979), p. 272; K. van der Toorn and P.W. van der Horst, “Nimrod before and after the Bible,” HTR 83 (1990), pp. 12–15; Uehlinger, “Nimrod,” in: K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, P.W. van der Horst (eds.) Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. (Leiden, 1995), col. 1181. 32 A.L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago and London, 1964), p. 46. 33 A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Part 2 (Wiesbaden, 1976), p. 16 (TiglathPileser I). On Ninurta and the motif of “royal hunt,” see now A. Annus, The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia, SAAS 14 (Helsinki, 2002), pp. 102–108.

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

13

Babylonia—with Babel as the ﬁrst one. It is still not quite clear how to interpret the name Kalneh. It is a well-known option to read this word as kull¯an¯ah, “all of them”,34 but this does not recommend itself since it is more plausible to take the word as the name of a city. One might think of Kullaba, a city in Babylonia.35 The next part, vv. 11–12, is about Assyria. It is said that he, Nimrod, who is the subject of the verb,36 went out from the land of Shinar to Assyria. There he built cities, four in number, Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen. The last one is the only one with information about its location, and more intriguingly, it is stated that it is “the great city”.37 The cities of Nineveh and Calah are well-known, the latter being built as the royal capital by Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BC),38 but the other two, Rehoboth-Ir and Resen, still represent enigmatic names. What about these two cities? It strikes one that both names are in Hebrew: Rehoboth-Ir means “squares of city”, and Resen is a Hebrew word for “bridle”. It has been suggested that Rehoboth-Ir be regarded as being in apposition to Nineveh: Nineveh, the broadest city.39 However, since the Hebrew text is marked by the usage of the object marker in all four cases (…úàå … úàå … úàå … úàå), the idea of an apposition, or a similar construction, does not recommend itself. Rehoboth-Ir as designation—City with squares—points to an important city.40 Which city might be meant? As we know from Assyrian sources, there was one city in Assyria—the city of Ashur itself—which often is not referred to by its name, but by a designation, namely, “the City”, or “the Inner City”.41 An interesting case is to be found in one of the oracles of See e.g. Witte, Urgeschichte, p. 110. This suggestion was already made by P. Jensen in 1895; see J. Skinner, Genesis, ICC (Edinburgh, 1930), p. 210. For Kullaba, see Fuchs, Inschriften, p. 351 (“Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Larsa, Kullaba etc.”); see also p. 362. 36 Cf. Witte, Urgeschichte, p. 110, Anm. 121. “Ashur” in the sense of “to Assyria” is also found in Hos 7:11. At other places the name with locative termination is used (äøåÖà). 37 It has been suggested to regard the phrase “the great city” as apposition to Nineveh or Calah (see Lambert, “Assyrien,” p. 272; Sasson, “Rehovot Ir,” RB 90 [1983], p. 94), but syntactically speaking this is not plausible. 38 See Grayson, Inscriptions Part 2, pp. 113–121. 39 See e.g. Sasson, “Rehovot Ir,” p. 95; Van der Toorn, “Nimrod,” p. 5. For a slightly diﬀerent reading, see E. Lipinski, ´ “Nimrod et Assur,” RB 73 (1966), p. 85 (“avec des places urbaines”). 40 The element of “squares” is always related to great cities, not only in Palestine (e.g. Jerusalem, see Lam 2:12), but also in Mesopotamia. 41 For “the City,” see e.g. P. Garelli, “Tablettes Cappadociennes de Collections 34 35

14

arie van der kooij

encouragement to Esarhaddon where the following listing of cities is given: “the Inner City, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela”. Just as in Gen 10:12 an appellative (“the Inner City”) is given here together with real names of other cities in Assyria. In the light of these data it seems plausible that Rehoboth-Ir actually refers to the city of Ashur. As to Resen attempts have been made to interpret the name in the light of Akkadian words, such as risnu, “irrigation”, or more in particular, as based on Res eni, “Fountain-head”, the name of a settlement not far from Nineveh.42 However, the search for Akkadian equivalents has not led to convincing proposals. In my view, Resen is to be regarded as a Hebrew word (“bridle”) which is used as a symbolical name for a particular city in Assyria. The word ïñø evokes the picture of an Assyrian custom of humiliating defeated enemies (rulers) by putting bridles or nose-ropes on them. A well-known depiction of this practice is provided by a series of stelae executed by the order of Esarhaddon after his succesful campaign against Memphis in Egypt (671 BC). The Assyrian king is presented here as someone who is holding an Egyptian king (presumably Tirhaka) and a Phoenician king with a nose-rope. It has an inscription that reads inter alia, (Esarhaddon) the king of kings of Egypt, Patros and Kush (…) who holds kings with a bridle (mukil s. erret maliki)43

More interesting, however, is the fact that a reference to this practice is found in Assyrian sources which are related to a particular city, namely inscriptions of Sargon II which all are from Dur-Sharrukin. The phrase involved reads thus,

diverses,” RA 59 (1965), pp. 151, 155, 158; and for “the Inner City,” see e.g. the Indices in SAA (State Archives of Assyria) I, IX, X. The latter designation of Ashur is attested as early as the inscriptions of Adad-narari I (ca 1300 BC). Initially, it referred to the old city of Ashur, but later on it was used for the city as a whole. 42 For the former suggestion, see Lipinski, ´ “Nimrod,” pp. 85–86, and for the latter, see Lambert, “Assyrien,” p. 272. 43 See R. Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Konigs von Assyrien (Graz, 1956), pp. 96–97. For a parallel in the Old Testament, see 2 Kings 19:28 (par Isa 37:27); cf. C. Uehlinger, “Figurative policy, Propaganda und Prophetie,” in J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 SVT 66 (Leiden, 1997), p. 306; A. van der Kooij, “The Story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib (2 Kings 18–19). A Sample of Ancient Historiography,” in J.C. de Moor and H.F. van Rooy (eds.), Past, Present, Future. The Deuteronomistic History and the Prophets, OTS 44 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 115–116.

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

15

I put bridles (s. erreti) on the rulers (or, usurpers) of the four regions of the world.44

This phrase which is not attested in royal inscriptions of other Assyrian kings, clearly conveys the notion of world dominion.45 In the light of these data it is likely that Resen as the designation of a city actually stands for the new city that was built by Sargon II, viz. Dur-Sharrukin.46 First, the (symbolical) name Resen ﬁts the idea that Dur-Sharrukin was the city which symbolized Sargon’s world power as is clear from the inscriptions from that city, such as the so-called Cylinder Inscription which was composed in commemoration of the founding of the new capital. Second, the location as given in Gen 10:12 ﬁts, roughly speaking, the place of Dur-Sharrukin, halfway between Nineveh and Calah to the north.47 And, thirdly, it also explains why Resen is called “the great city”. As is clear from Assyrian sources as well as from excavations, the new capital was a most impressive city indeed.48 The notion of world dominion may also account for the number of cities, both in Babylonia, and in Assyria, in Gen 10:10–12, for in both cases the number of “four” reminds one of the four regions of the earth. If so, this passage describes in a nutshell two phases in the political history of Mesopotamia: the phase of world power in early times (one might think here of Sargon of Akkad49), and that of New Assyrian imperialism culminating in the reign of Sargon II.

44 See Fuchs, Inschriften, pp. 33, 46, 56, 86, 193 (translations on pp. 290, 297, 301, 313, 343 respectively). 45 For a similar expression in the Old Testament, see Isa 30:28 (“a bridle [ïñø!] … on the jaws of the peoples”). 46 This suggestion has also been made, albeit on implausible grounds, by Van der Toorn, “Nimrod,” p. 6, and by Y. Levin, “Nimrod the Mighty, king of Kish, king of Sumer and Akkad,” VT 52 (2002), p. 365. 47 According to Gen 10:12 Resen was located “between” Nineveh and Calah. However, “between” is not necessarily meant in a precise way. Compare the phrase “between the eyes” which actually means “on the front of the head”. 48 See RlA II, pp. 249–252 (E. Unger); P. Albenda, The Palace of Sargon King of Assyria (Paris, 1986). 49 Compare Levin, “Nimrod the Mighty,” pp. 359–364. I do not think, however, that Nimrod is modeled after Sargon of Akkad, as Levin argues, but rather after Sargon II.

16

arie van der kooij V. Concluding remarks

The passage of Gen 10:8–12 does indeed support our interpretation of the story in Gen 11. Both reﬂect in one way or another Assyrian imperialism, and both mirror a speciﬁc feature of the imperialistic ideology as expressed in texts from Dur-Sharrukin: in Gen 11, the passage about peoples from all over the earth who were brought to the new capital and who were caused to have “one mouth”, and in Gen 10, the expression about the “bridle” on the rulers of the world. Both stories are closely related. The building of Babel was modeled after the building of Dur-Sharrukin. The former—the ﬁrst city mentioned in Gen 10:10–12—is characterized by the expression ìãâîå øéò, “city and tower”, whereas the latter—the last one mentioned in Gen 10:10–12—is called äìãâä øéòä, “the great city”.50 There is, of course, a diﬀerence between both passages, since from a chronological point of view the Gen 11 story goes further back in time than the passage about Nimrod. The story of the building of the city of Babel forms a backdrop to the passage in Gen 10. Nimrod, the heroking, is not the builder of Babel, but may be seen as an heir to mankind in Gen 11 as far as the pursuit for supreme power is concerned. According to Gen 11 mankind could build up a strong position since they were one people because they spoke one and the same language. However, afterwards, as soon as there were diﬀerent languages and, as a result of that, diﬀerent peoples living spread out over the earth, things were diﬀerent. In this situation, world dominion could only be realized by force, by subjugating nations with diﬀerent tongues, by not respecting their borders,51 and by mass deportations. From this perspective, the name of Nimrod might well be taken as conveying the notion of rebellion (Hebrew ãøî), since in striving for supreme power he did not respect the order of things as decided by God in primeval times. The story of Gen 11 represents a sophisticated text which embodies evidence for a critical reﬂection on New Assyrian imperialism by focusing on the building project of Dur-Sharrukin by Sargon II as the climax and failure. By setting the story in primeval times the author was able

50 In Assyrian sources the phrase ‘the great ciy’ can convey the notion of royal capital. 51 Cf. Isa 10:13.

the city of babel and assyrian imperialism

17

to indicate that world domination would be a violation of the order of things as destined by God at the beginning of history. Thus, a reading of the story in Gen 11 in the light of Mesopotamian sources turns out to be worthwhile. It sheds light on the combination of the several motifs in the story which seems puzzling at ﬁrst sight. Viewed from a perspective broader than an inner-biblical one, the Gen 11 story as it stands makes perfect sense. The city of Dur-Sharrukin was inaugurated in the year 706 BC. Only one year later—705 BC—Sargon II died an unexpected death in battle, in Anatolia. “His death rocked the ancient world”.52 In line with the thinking of the time, Sargon’s death and the fact that he “was not buried in his house” were regarded as a sign of divine wrath for grave oﬀences committed by the king. Thus according to the Assyrian text called “The Sin of Sargon”.53 The result was the abandonment of the still unﬁnished city of Dur-Sharrukin. One can easily imagine that the scribal elite in Jerusalem considered the death of Sargon II as a punishment by YHWH for not having respected the world order as set by God. One can also imagine that the way these events were looked upon created a hope of return to their own country for all the Israelites who had been deported to Assyria. And now my ﬁnal remark. We in Leiden have Abraham as our father—Abraham Kuenen. We still regard him highly, though not uncritically. In his view the passages of Gen 10 and 11 are part of the so-called Jahwist source. In line with his view, and despite recent alternative theories,54 I regard our passages as belonging to the earliest stratum in the Pentateuch.55 This early stratum represents a literary work that was written at the end of the eighth century BC, in a period which was marked by the ﬁrst serious crisis ancient Israel had had to face due to New Assyrian imperialism.56

52 K. Lawson Younger, “Recent Study on Sargon II, King of Assyria: Implications for Biblical Studies,” in: M.W. Chavalas and K.Lawson Younger (eds.), Mesopotamia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, 2002), p. 319. 53 For this text, see A. Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, SAA 3 (Helsinki, 1989), pp. 77–79. For the phrase ‘was not buried in his house’, see p. 77 (l. 20). 54 See the works of H.H. Schmid, C. Rendtorﬀ, C. Levin, J. Van Seters, E. Blum, and others. 55 Texts ascribed to the Elohist are, in my view, of a later date (presumably towards the end of the 7th century BC). 56 I thank Dr M.E.J. Richardson for correcting the English of this article.

THE TWELVE MINOR PROPHETS AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

George J. Brooke

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to review the overall picture of the evidence for the preservation and use of the Twelve Minor Prophets1 in the Dead Sea Scrolls, most especially at Qumran but also in the other ﬁnds from the Judaean Desert, to indicate further avenues of research, both for the so-called biblical manuscripts and also for the sectarian ones. In a presentation of this kind it will not be possible to provide an exhaustive survey of all the evidence, but I hope to cover enough topics to suggest strongly that the Twelve both as a collection and as individual books deserve more attention in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls than they have yet received.2

I. The Textual Evidence3 In this section of the paper I wish to present a brief characterisation of the evidence for the scriptural text of the Twelve in the Dead Sea Scrolls, making one or two observations which have not been promi1 I will refer to the Twelve Minor Prophets in the rest of this paper simply as the Twelve. 2 It is interesting to note, e.g., that in his important general survey of the key variants in the scriptures found at Qumran, Eugene Ulrich makes no mention of the Twelve: Eugene Ulrich, “The Text of the Hebrew Scriptures at the Time of Hillel and Jesus,” in: A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Basel 2001, SVT 92 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 86–91. 3 This section of the paper is based in part on some overall editorial work which I contributed to the Biblia Qumranica project, based at the University of Tübingen; the Twelve Minor Prophets fascicle has now been published: Beate Ego, Armin Lange, Hermann Lichtenberger and Kristin De Troyer (eds), Minor Prophets, Biblia Qumranica 3B (Leiden, 2005).

20

george j. brooke

nent in the presentations of those responsible for the principal editions of the manuscripts, but which may form the basis of future investigations.4 Intriguingly, for Qumran, apart from a small set of fragments from Cave 5 preserving part of Amos 1, manuscript copies of the Twelve have only been found in Cave 4. Cave 4 can be understood as the working depository of the community that lived at Qumran.5 Given the importance of the Twelve in the exegetical life of the community, it is not surprising to ﬁnd up to nine possible copies of the Twelve there. However, because of that self-same ideological centrality, the question needs to be asked whether it is surprising that no copies have been found in Caves 1 and 11 which seem to share much of the ethos of the collection of Cave 4, often having exemplars of the same compositions as are found there.6 Perhaps there is no signiﬁcance in this; what has survived might indeed have survived largely by accident. A. Manuscript copies of the Twelve7 In addition to the copy of Amos from Cave 5, there are up to nine possible copies of the Twelve from Cave 4, as well as one copy of the Twelve from both Nahal and Murabba#at, making twelve . Hever . manuscripts in all.8 Very little work has yet been done on the recon4 Though without room for much subtle comment, a helpful summary of the manuscripts is provided by Russell E. Fuller, “Minor Prophets,” in: Lawrence H. Schiﬀman and James C. VanderKam (eds), Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York, 2000), pp. 554–557. 5 The remains of holes in the wall of this man-made cave suggest that there was extensive shelving there and not that the cave was simply the last to be ﬁlled with the remains of the Qumran library once the other caves had received their deposits, as argued by Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Grand Rapids/Leiden, 1998), pp. 74–75. 6 On the signiﬁcance of the distribution of compositions by cave see the important preliminary analysis by Devorah Dimant, “The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Signiﬁcance,” in: Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiﬀman (eds), Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, STDJ 16 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 23–58. Dimant does not discuss the scriptural manuscripts in detail, but her insights could well be applied to them as well. 7 The small fragment of Joel 4:1–4 now in the Schøyen collection needs to be added to the data on the Twelve. See www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.9/#4612. 8 Sequential indexes of the passages extant in these manuscripts can be found in Eugene Ulrich, “An Index of the Passages in the Biblical Manuscripts from the Judean Desert (Part 2: Isaiah–Chronicles),” DSD 2 (1995), pp. 94–98; Eugene Ulrich, “Index of Passages in the ‘Biblical Texts’,” in: E. Tov (ed.), The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, DJD 39 (Oxford, 2002),

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

21

struction of the Qumran manuscripts in any extensive way, though their principal editor has clearly made some preliminary calculations of line length where possible, often with the question in mind as to whether a likely restoration should replicate the MT or reﬂect the Vorlage of the LXX. The following eight manuscripts seem to be the principal ones from Qumran; the uncertainty in locating some fragments, especially 4QXIIc frag. 35 and 4QXIIf frag. 5, has resulted in a somewhat unhappy state of aﬀairs: the editor has left problematic fragments as parts of manuscripts to which they probably do not belong.9 When scholars make statements about the popularity of certain books at Qumran, the number of manuscript copies is often used as a signiﬁcant indicator, but as is the case for many of the scriptural books, the precise number of extant copies cannot be known for sure, not least because the small size of many fragments makes it diﬃcult to judge how they should be grouped, and it is quite possible for more than one scribe to be involved in the writing of a single manuscript (as probably for 8HevXIIgr). Those . interested in how popular a book was for the sectarian community have to use criteria in addition to the number of copies; such additional criteria might include an assessment of the number of explicit quotations and other allusions. 4QXIIa (4Q76)10 is in an irregular semicursive hand from approximately the middle of the second century BCE. Its principal editor has noted the distinctive character of its presentation and proposed that it was not copied at Qumran, but brought there from outside. This is certainly correct. Textually this manuscript has been classiﬁed as “nonaligned”.11 This manuscript is most well known for the order in which the prophetic books occur: Jonah follows Malachi.12 This manuscript pp. 195–196; David L. Washburn, A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls, SBL Text-Critical Studies 2 (Atlanta, 2002), pp. 139–156. 9 4QXIIc frag. 38 contains part of Ps. 38:4–6 and belongs to 4QPsa (4Q83). 10 23 fragments are assigned to this manuscript containing parts of Zech. 14:18; Mal. 2:10–14; 2:15–3:24; Jon. 1:1–5, 7–8, 9–10; 1:16–2:1; 2:7; 3:2. Seven sequential columns can be reconstructed. 11 Russell E. Fuller, “The Twelve,” in: Eugene Ulrich et al. (eds), Qumran Cave 4.X: The Prophets, DJD 15 (Oxford, 1997), p. 221. 12 See O.H. Steck, “Zur Abfolge Maleachi–Jona in 4Q76 (4QXIIa),” ZAW 108 (1996), pp. 249–253, in which Steck states that after consultation with Hartmut Stegemann, Annette Steudel and Alexander Maurer and with minor adjustments in the allocation of verses to columns, the insights of Fuller are to be conﬁrmed. Steck argues that this secondary placing of Jonah at the end of the Twelve can be dated to the early

22

george j. brooke

has some distinct damage marks on it which, because of their increasing distance apart as the text proceeds, strongly suggest that when put in the cave the end of the text was on the outside. When provisionally reconstructed in light of these damage patterns, it seems very far from certain, though just possible, that there would be enough room to preserve the remaining ten books of the Twelve between what remains and the start of the scroll. It is quite possible, therefore, that rather than Jonah being the text which is placed at the end of the manuscript, as is now widely assumed without question,13 Malachi and Jonah, in that order, may have belonged together closer to the middle of the collection, or that this manuscript merely contained some rather than all of the Twelve. The order of the books of the Twelve in this manuscript immediately raises the important question whether in the Second Temple period there are two or more literary editions for the Twelve as for some other scriptural books.14 4QXIIb (4Q77)15 is like 4QXIIa in that it seems to come from the middle of the second century BCE and so was brought to Qumran from outside. These two manuscripts together suggest that the Twelve were important for members of the movement before ever there was a settlement at Qumran, since it is now quite probable that a section of the Essene movement settled at Qumran only in the ﬁrst quarter of the ﬁrst century BCE.16 Not enough survives of the manuscript to judge whether it might have contained the whole collection of the Twelve, but fragment 3 clearly has Haggai following on from Zephaniah. Textually, it is close to what may be assumed might have been a proto-Masoretic form of the text.

second century BCE in light of the parallel concerns also evident in Pss 148, 150, Tobit 14 and Ben Sira 36. 13 E.g., by Barry A. Jones, The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon, SBL Dissertation Series 149 (Atlanta, 1995), pp. 129–169. Jones constructs an elaborate reading of Jonah on the basis of this assumption, arguing that it was originally placed as 4QXIIa has it, at the end of the collection. 14 See the important collected insights of Eugene C. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids, 1999), esp. chs. 3 and 6. 15 6 fragments are assigned to this manuscript containing parts of Zeph. 1:1–2; 2:13– 15; 3:19–Hag. 1:2; 2:2–4. 16 See Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids, 2002), pp. 63–71.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

23

4QXIIc (4Q78)17 dates from the ﬁrst half of the ﬁrst century BCE. Surprisingly, there has been no attempt to reconstruct the manuscript in the principal edition, but it seems as if it could be made up of columns of at least twenty lines of generally about seventy-ﬁve letter spaces. It is quite likely that the manuscript contained the whole collection of the Twelve. It is characterised by Fuller as “relatively close to the textual tradition represented by the Septuagint,”18 though Emanuel Tov prefers to describe it as non-aligned.19 There is, however, a striking agreement with LXX Hos. 13:4 in fragment 8; the text has to be restored according to the longer LXX text, not according to the shorter MT.20 This fragment, therefore, raises the important point about how criteria for aligning fragmentary manuscripts are compiled; beyond the way in which importance can be given to shared distinctive errors, there is still considerable lack of clarity about this. 4QXIId (4Q79),21 from the middle of the ﬁrst century BCE, is extant in two adjoining fragments from the middle of a column. Fragment 2 preserves a very wide right margin of 4.4 cm which certainly formed the beginning of the scroll. Since the extant text is from Hos. 1:6–2:5, it is quite possible that this manuscript contained the whole of the Twelve, with Hosea at the start.22 Not enough of this manuscript is preserved to classify its text-type nor has there yet been an adequate explanation for the variation in line length between the ﬁrst four extant lines of up to 17 50 fragments are assigned to this manuscript containing parts of Hos. 2:13–15; 3:2–4; 4:1–5:1; 13:3–10; 13:15–14:6; Joel 1:10–2:1; 2:8–23; 4:6–21; Amos 2:11–4:2; 6:13– 7:16; Zeph. 2:15–3:2. When reconstructed the text of Mal. 3:6–7 on frag. 35 has line lengths less than half those of the rest of the manuscript; Fuller therefore concludes that the fragment comes from another manuscript of the Twelve. Frag. 9, now either lost or in private hands, was published by M. Testuz, “Deux fragments inédits des manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” Semitica 5 (1955), pp. 37–38. 18 Fuller, “Minor Prophets,” (n. 4), p. 555. 19 Emanuel Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert—An Overview and Analysis of the Published Texts,” in: Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov (eds), The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries (London/New Castle, 2002), p. 156. 20 As commented on in detail by Russell Fuller, “A Critical Note on Hosea 12:10 and 13:4,” RB 98 (1991), pp. 343–357. 21 2 fragments are assigned to this manuscript covering Hos. 1:6–2:5. 22 Other early studies of this manuscript are G. Wilhelm Nebe, “Eine neue HoseaHandschrift aus Höhle 4 von Qumran,” ZAW 91 (1979), pp. 292–294; Lawrence A. Sinclair, “A Qumran Biblical Fragment: Hosea 4QXIId (Hosea 1:7–2:5),” BASOR 239 (1980), pp. 61–65. Nebe conﬁdently asserts that the fragment attests to a protoMasoretic text family; Sinclair wonders whether there are two or three text types for the Twelve.

24

george j. brooke

ﬁfty letter spaces each and the remaining lines averaging at least ﬁfteen letter spaces less.23 4QXIIe (4Q80),24 also from the middle of the ﬁrst century BCE, is extant in mostly small fragments. It is tempting to suggest that fragments 6 and 7 of approximately the same size and shape, and containing the same lines of Zech. 2:10–14, but several centimetres apart, were preserved because they were one on top of the other. If that had been the case, then it is possible on the basis of a tentative reconstruction to suggest that if fragment 6 had been underneath fragment 7 (now correctly placed to the left of fragment 6), then there was enough room before the end of the manuscript for the rest of the book of Zechariah and the book of Malachi, depending upon how tall the columns may have been (for which we have no clear evidence). If such had been the case, then the earlier sheets of the manuscript might have contained the whole of the Twelve. Fuller has claimed that this manuscript “stands very close to the textual tradition represented by the Septuagint,”25 but a survey of the variants suggests it is preferable by far to view the manuscript as non-aligned; there do not seem to be any significant agreements with the LXX. 4QXIIf (4Q81),26 from the mid-ﬁrst century BCE, may only be extant in four fragments, all of which contain parts of Jonah. Too little is preserved to allow for any deﬁnitive statement about either the likely extent of the manuscript or its text-type, though it does not deviate in any major way from the MT, but that is not particularly surprising given the general stability of the text of Jonah in any case. Was this a manuscript copy of Jonah alone? If so, might the existence of such a manuscript in the ﬁrst century BCE provide evidence that the location of Jonah in the Twelve was an ongoing issue for some even after the time of 4QXIIa?

23 Both Nebe and Sinclair attempt to explain this on the basis of the diﬀerent style of writing in the two sets of lines, but the principal editor remains silent about the problem. 24 25 fragments are assigned to this manuscript containing parts of Hag. 2:18–21; Zech. 1:4–6, 9–10, 13–14; 2:10–14; 3:2–10; 4:1–4; 5:8–11; 6:1–5; 8:2–4, 6–7; 12:7–12. 25 Fuller, “Minor Prophets,” p. 556. 26 5 fragments are assigned to this manuscript containing parts of Jon. 1:6–8, 10–16. Frag. 5 is assigned to this manuscript because its script seems to be closest to that of 4QXIIf. It contains parts of Mic. 5:1–2. It was originally assessed as being part of a separate manuscript: Russell E. Fuller, “4QMicah: A Small Fragment of a Manuscript of the Minor Prophets from Qumran, Cave IV,” RevQ 16 (1993), pp. 193–202.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

25

4QXIIg (4Q82),27 from the last third of the ﬁrst century BCE, remains the most challenging of the extant manuscripts of the Twelve and there would still seem to be much valuable work that could be done on it. Fuller has noted that many fragments belong to multiple layers of the scroll. From this it should prove possible to tell which way the scroll was rolled and how tightly, and from that information to calculate whether the scroll could have contained the whole of the collection of the Twelve. However, the complexity of the material evidence is clear from Fuller’s introductory comment: “Since the layered fragments give clues to the order in which the scroll lay as it deteriorated, one would think that the direction of the rolling could be established. The succession of layers, however, presents conﬂicting evidence and so is presented in the general notes for the individual fragments as they occur.”28 Although reconstruction is problematic, ten of the books of the Twelve are likely to be correctly assigned to this manuscript which makes it very likely that it was a complete copy of the Twelve. The text of 4QXIIg is readily classiﬁed as non-aligned, though Fuller suggests that it “stands close to the proto-masoretic textual tradition in most readings.”29 5QXII (5Q4) is a collection of small fragments, the largest group of which contains parts of Amos 1:3–5. The fact that part of the opening section of Amos survives may indicate that rather than 5Q4 being a copy of the Twelve, it contained Amos alone. Józef Milik, the editor of the principal edition, has claimed that the fragment provides evidence of a septuagintal reading in Amos 1:3, but the small piece on which the variant reading is claimed to rest is not part of Plate 36 in the principal edition, so it is impossible to conﬁrm the likelihood of this.30

27 258 fragments are assigned to this manuscript: fragments 106–258 remain unidentiﬁed, the other fragments contain parts of Hos. 2:1–5, 14–19, 22–25; 3:1–5; 4:1, 10–11, 13–14; 6:3–4, 8–11; 7:1, 13–16; 8:1; 9:1–4, 9–17; 10:1–14; 11:2–11; 12:1–15; 13:1, 6–8, 11–13; 14:9–10; Joel 1:12–14; 2:12–13; 4:4–9, 11–14, 17, 19–20; Amos 1:3–15; 2:1, 7–9, 15–16; 3:1– 2; 4:4–9; 5:1–2, 9–18; 6:1–4, 6–14; 7:1, 7–12, 14–17; 8:1–5, 11–14; 9:1, 6, 14–15; Obad. 1–5, 8–12, 14–15; Jon. 1:1–9; 2:3–11; 3:1–3; 4:5–11; Mic. 1:7, 12–15; 2:3–4; 3:12; 4:1–2; 5:6–7; 7:2–3, 20; Nah. 1:7–9; 2:9–11; 3:1–3, 17; Hab. 2:4(?); Zeph. 3:3–5; Zech. 10:11–12; 11:1–2; 12:1–3. 28 Fuller, “The Twelve,” p. 272. 29 Fuller, “Minor Prophets,” p. 556. 30 Józef T. Milik, “Textes de la grotte 5Q ,” in: Maurice Baillet, Józef T. Milik and Roland de Vaux, Les ‘Petites Grottes’ de Qumrân, DJD 3 (Oxford, 1962), pp. 173–174, and Plate 36. Milik proposes reading hrw[t] hgl #[d with the LXX over against "t hgl #d of the MT.

26

george j. brooke

In addition to these eight manuscripts found in the Qumran caves, there are two others that provide signiﬁcant evidence about the Twelve. 31 contains parts of all the books from Jonah to ZechFirst, 8HevXIIgr . ariah, except for Haggai, though the manuscript remains permit the restoration of Haggai in the appropriate place. Tov has proposed that what survives could indicate a scroll of ﬁfty-ﬁve columns, running from Jonah through to the end of Malachi; the scroll seems to have been written by two scribes, with the changeover possibly taking place in Zechariah 8, or a little earlier. The tetragrammaton is preserved in palaeo-Hebrew throughout the manuscript, in sections by both hands. The date of the earlier scribe is considered to be in the late ﬁrst century BCE, with the later scribe shortly thereafter.32 Though in Greek, the key observation that in this scroll Jonah to Malachi are in the order traditionally preserved by the mediaeval Hebrew witnesses, discloses the character of the text contained in this manuscript. It is a version of the Twelve in Greek which in some parts has been corrected towards a Hebrew Vorlage “much closer to MT than to that of the LXX”;33 it is not a fresh translation of the Hebrew, but a revision of the LXX, since some of the idiosyncracies of the LXX are retained. Other features conﬁrm this characterisation, such as the way the text divisions agree to a great extent with the Masoretic tradition. Second, Murabba#at 88,34 found together with skeletal remains and clothes, was badly damaged both by water and hungry insects. Never31 Emanuel Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) (The . . . Seiyâl Collection I), DJD 8 (Oxford, 1990). See also Dominique Barthélemy, Les devanciers d’Aquila, SVT 10 (Leiden, 1963). 32 Peter J. Parsons, “The Scripts and Their Date,” in: E. Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll, pp. 19–26. 33 Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll, p. 145. On p. 158 Tov concludes: “it is clear that R [Revision in 8HevXIIgr] agrees especially with Sym, Aq, the so-called ‘Th’ and the . so-called Quinta, as well as with codex W of the LXX, the biblical text quoted by Just (with reference to the quotation from Mi 4:3–7) and the Coptic translations.” 34 Józef T. Milik, “Textes hébreux et araméens,” in: Pierre Benoit, Józef T. Milik and Roland de Vaux, Les Grottes de Murabba#ât, DJD 2 (Oxford, 1961), pp. 181–205, and Plates 56–73. Though badly damaged the scroll was suﬃciently intact not to require its various fragments to be numbered. Portions of the following texts remain assigned to twenty-one columns: I. Joel 2:20; II. 2:26–4:16; III. Amos 1:5–2:1; IV–V missing; VI slight remains; VII. 7:3–8:7; VIII. 8:11–9:15; IX. Obad. 1–21; X. Jon. 1:1–3:2; XI. 3:2– Mic. 1:5; XII. Mic. 1:5–3:4; XIII. 3:4–4:12; XIV. 4:12–6:7; XV. 6:11–7:17; XVI. Mic. 7:17–Nah. 2:12; XVII. Nah. 2:13–3:19; XVIII. Hab. 1:3–2:11; XIX. Hab. 2:18–Zeph. 1:1; XX. Zeph. 1:11–3:6; XXI. Zeph. 3:8–Hag. 1:11; XXII. Hag. 1:12–2:10; XXIII. Hag. 2:13–Zech. 1:4.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

27

theless its surviving twenty-one columns provide strong evidence that it was a complete copy of the Twelve in about forty columns, about ﬁve metres long, from some time around the end of the ﬁrst century CE. The column height and the extravagant upper and lower margins lead Emanuel Tov to classify this manuscript as a de luxe copy, the only manuscript of the Twelve from the Judaean desert ﬁnds to merit such a classiﬁcation.35 The text of the Twelve is very close to that represented by the MT: as might be expected there are a few orthographic variants and confusions in words involving Qere–Ketib, but the only substantial variant is an assimilation to the text of Psalm 77:18 in the hymn of Hab. 3:10. In only three places are there diﬀerences from the MT in the haftarot divisions, though there is some variety in the methods of indicating the divisions.36 B. The Text-Critical Use of the Explicit Citations of the Twelve In addition to what may be evidence for manuscripts of the Twelve, there are explicit citations from the Twelve in several of the sectarian compositions found in the Qumran caves which can be used for textcritical purposes. There has been some justiﬁable reluctance in textcritical analysis to engage with the explicit quotations of scriptural texts found in the sectarian compositions discovered amongst the Qumran manuscripts. For the prophets this has been most obvious in the case of Isaiah: the principal edition of the Cave 4 manuscripts deliberately avoids reference to the explicit citations of Isaiah in the pesharim.37 For the Twelve the picture is more diﬃcult than with Isaiah because the extant evidence is so much more partial. Although Luis Vegas Montaner used all the data from the pesharim in his edition of the

35 Emanuel Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert—An Overview and Analysis of the Published Texts,” p. 158. 36 Amos 7:3/4; Amos 9:6/7; Hag. 2:13/14. 37 Patrick W. Skehan and Eugene Ulrich, “Isaiah,” in: Eugene Ulrich et al. (eds), Qumran Cave 4.X: The Prophets, DJD 15 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 7–143. The evidence assembled by Francis J. Morrow was thus ignored: The Text of Isaiah at Qumran, PhD Dissertation, Catholic University of America (Washington, 1973). I have challenged this lack of the use of quotations in text-critical work in George J. Brooke, “The Qumran Pesharim and the Text of Isaiah in the Cave 4 Manuscripts,” in: Ada Rapaport-Albert and Gillian Greenberg (eds), Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Text: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman, JSOTSup 333 (London, 2001), pp. 304–320.

28

george j. brooke

Hebrew text of the XII,38 in the principal edition of the Qumran fragments of the Twelve Russell Fuller has been unable to make any use of the explicit citations of the Twelve in the pesharim, because, ironically, there are no extant overlaps between any of the citations and what survives in the manuscripts of the Twelve from Cave 4.39 There are, of course, some overlaps between the citations on the one hand and 8HevXIIgr and Mur 88 on the other, but it is noteworthy . that little work has been done on whether the citations might be of use in the assessment of these two manuscripts. Most of the work on Mur 88 was being completed at the same time as preliminary editions of the pesharim were being published, but the discussion of variants is limited solely to the MT. The relatively small list of variants needs to be revisited. At Nah. 1:5 4QpNah 1–2 ii 9 reads hr[ym with the MT, whereas Mur 88 reads hhrym with the LXX and the targum. At Nah. 2:13, the MT has the most diﬃcult reading of grwtyw, where both 4QpNah and Mur 88 seem to oﬀer assimilations towards gwr of Nah. 2:12: 4QpNah 3–4 i 4 reads gwryw, Mur 88 has gwrtyw.40 For sˇqws. ym in Nah. 3:6, 4QpNah and Mur 88 agree in their orthography which is fuller than that of the MT (ˇsqs. ym). Lastly, Nah. 3:8b is represented variously in the surviving evidence: 4QpNah 3–4 iii 10 appears to support the LXX in reading a conjunction at a diﬃcult point and probably pointing as y¯am ûmayim, for the overall sense: “whose power is sea and water her walls;”41 Mur 88 does not have y¯am and so reads "ˇsr h. yl mym h. wmth, either “whose rampart of water is her wall” or “whose power from the sea is her wall;” MT and 8HevXIIgr reﬂect the same . consonantal text but MT is pointed "˘asˇer h. êl y¯am miyy¯am h. ôm¯at¯ah, to provide the diﬃcult sense of “whose rampart is a sea, from the sea her 38 Luis Vegas Montaner, Biblia del Mar Muerto: Profetas Menores. Edición crítica según manuscritos hebreos procedentes del Mar Muerto (Madrid, 1980). 39 Fuller does however discuss Hos. 10:12 in 4QXIIg and CD 6:10–11: Russell E. Fuller, “Textual Traditions in the Book of Hosea and the Minor Prophets,” in: Julio Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner (eds), The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March, 1991, STDJ 11 (Leiden/Madrid, 1992), pp. 254–256. 40 G. Doudna, 4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition, JSPSup 35 (London, 2001), pp. 126–130, oﬀers no comment on this variant. For detailed comments on the textual relationship between 4QpNah and Mur 88 see Shani L. Berrin, The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran: An Exegetical Study of 4Q169, STDJ 53 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 294–295. 41 Maurya P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books, CBQMS 8 (Washington, 1979), p. 165, translates 4QpNah as “whose power is (the) sea, and (the) water, her walls.” In 4QpNah h. {w}mwtyw is clearly a plural, which agrees with the LXX against 8HevXIIgr, Mur 88 and MT. .

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

29

wall,” whereas 8HevXIIgr is heir to the LXX’s understanding: “whose . strength is the sea, water [her wall].” The result of this small list is that when set alongside each other the clearly non-sectarian variant readings of 4QpNahum and the variants of Mur 88 are mutually informative. Together with the LXX, they seem variously to be or to represent texts which have improved on what is represented by the more diﬃcult MT. However, it must be remembered that the sample is too slight for signiﬁcant generalisation. For 8HevXIIgr the textual analysis has been undertaken so far with. out a comprehensive use of the non-sectarian variants in the citations of the Twelve in the pesharim and at other places. Given the important way in which the Hebrew consonantal text underlying 8HevXIIgr can . often be easily reconstructed, there is room for a study which would assess the variants in such a text alongside what is extant in other manuscripts of the Twelve and the earliest citations. Such a comparative analysis would naturally cover all manner of textual details set within the framework of the textual tendencies in 8HevXIIgr over. all. But such a comparison could also take into account such matters as the representation of the tetragrammaton in palaeo-Hebrew, a phenomenon well-known from the Cave 1 Habakkuk Commentary in particular. The most signiﬁcant early attempt at listing and evaluating the textual variants in Habakkuk in light of 1QpHab was that completed by William Brownlee.42 He revisited his analysis later.43 Although it is now clear that the author of the pesher intervenes in the text of Habakkuk, not all the variants are the result of such intervention. For example, the reading of mr"wt br # in 1QpHab’s Hab. 1:13 is preserved also in Pesiq. Rab Kah. 4.10 and 25.1 over against MT’s mr"wt r #.44 Furthermore, as with the scriptural copies of the Twelve, so with the quotations in the pesharim and elsewhere, it is possible to suggest textual aﬃliation. So, for example, it is possible to describe tentatively the text of Hosea as cited in 4QpHosa as “an independent witness which stands relatively close to LXX”.45 42 William H. Brownlee, The Text of Habakkuk in the Ancient Commentary from Qumran, JBL Monograph Series 11 (Philadelphia, 1959). 43 William H. Brownlee, The Midrash Pesher of Habakkuk, SBLMS 24 (Missoula, 1979). 44 This example is listed as a diﬀerence between L and biblical quotations in rabbinic literature by Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Assen/Minneapolis, 22001), p. 35. 45 Russell E. Fuller, “Textual Traditions in the Book of Hosea and the Minor Prophets,” p. 251.

30

george j. brooke

For the pesharim other than 1QpHab, nearly twenty years ago I oﬀered some suggestions about sorting out their textual variants.46 I argued that together with the probability that there are some scribal errors in the biblical texts in the commentaries, it must be acknowledged that in many instances the biblical texts in the commentaries support a variant known already. This has led many scholars to suppose that all or nearly all the variants in the biblical texts in the commentaries are witnesses of diﬀerent recensions or traditions which the commentators play upon to their advantage.47 Twenty years ago few scholars went as far as to suggest that the Qumran commentators actually introduced variants themselves, but it is more widely acknowledged now that in a signiﬁcant number of cases that was precisely what took place. For example, the verbs of Nah. 3:5 in 4QpNah 3–4 ii 10–11 are in the second rather than the ﬁrst person: this alteration means that rather than God himself being responsible for the abominations of the apostates and those they lead astray, the apostates themselves are. Punishment duly follows with God as subject in the quotation and interpretation of Nah. 3:6–7a in 4QpNah 3–4 iii 1–5. In addition to this change of person, for the quotations of the Twelve in the pesharim there are also changes of number, gender, and tense; there are what look like deliberate omissions, and there are various kinds of paronomasia (metathesis, anagram, "al tiqr¯e", double meaning). Though the Qumran commentators introduced variants into their presentation of extracts from the Twelve and other books, this was not a new phenomenon, but merely a continuation of the exegetical practices of scribes of the Second Temple period. The Qumran manuscripts, both the scriptural ones and those which explicitly cite scripture, have thus caused a reconsideration of the purposes of text criticism: at its best it is no longer the restricted analysis of how discrepancies between witnesses have occurred, but rather a description of the transmission of traditions which permits scribes in each generation to be active and creative partners in the transmission process. Beyond individual variant readings, about whose value decisions have to be made on a case by case basis, there are also variants in 46 George J. Brooke, “The Biblical Texts in the Qumran Commentaries: Scribal Errors or Exegetical Variants?” in: Craig A. Evans and William F. Stinespring (eds), Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee, SBL Homage Series 10 (Atlanta, 1987), pp. 85–100. 47 As in Russell E. Fuller, “Textual Traditions in the Book of Hosea and the Minor Prophets,” pp. 247–256.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

31

the pesharim which can be seen in the way in which the sense of the passage is presented. So, for example, the majority of cases of the division of Habakkuk into sense units is reﬂected in the MT. This shows that the Qumran interpreter was fully aware of the plain sense of the text he was commenting upon.48 But occasionally the division of the text into lemmata does not follow a natural reading, as in the way in which Hab. 1:4aβ,bα (1QpHab 1:12–14) is presented as a lemma, followed by Hab. 1:4bβ (1QpHab 1:14–16).49 Some variant paragraphing in the scriptural citations in the pesharim, both the continuous and the thematic ones may have been introduced by the commentators so as to make the cited text serve their purposes all the better, and these need to be identiﬁed. But that does not seem always to have been the case. As with the variant readings, it is necessary to sift variant paragraphings case by case.50 C. Overall textual signiﬁcance The Judaean desert manuscript evidence for the text of the Twelve oﬀers distinctive opportunities for the text critic. The distinctiveness of this data can be seen in the way it is clear that the modern scholar should work from two perspectives. First, for those scriptural manuscripts which probably contained a complete collection of the Twelve, it becomes important to attempt a characterisation of each collection. Second, on the basis that each member of the Twelve has its own textual history, it is important to consider each book in its own right. Both matters deserve a few overall comments. Most scholarly study of the evidence from Qumran and elsewhere begins and ends with consideration of the material as evidence for

48 As I have argued, based on some of Brownlee’s observations: George J. Brooke, “Reading the Plain Meaning of Scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in: George J. Brooke (ed.), Jewish Ways of Reading the Bible, JSSSup 11 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 87–89. 49 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, p. 71, comments on this phenomenon, but oddly cites examples as if from Habakkuk 3 which is not preserved in 1QpHab. 50 See the general comments by Russell Fuller, “The Form and Formation of the Book of the Twelve: The Evidence from the Judean Desert,” in James W. Watts and Paul R. House (eds), Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D.W. Watts, JSOTSup 235 (Sheﬃeld, 1996), pp. 93–95; Fuller suitably acknowledges the detailed work on Mur 88 and 8HevXIIgr of Josef M. Oesch, Petucha und . Setuma: Untersuchungen zu einer überlieferten Gliederung im hebräischen Text des Alten Testaments (Freiburg/Göttingen, 1979), pp. 284–289.

32

george j. brooke

the Twelve as a collection.51 Some copies of the Twelve hardly vary from what is known in the MT. In this group in particular Emanuel Tov has placed 4QXIIb and 4QXIIf.52 It is likely that 4QXIId also belongs in this category, though not enough text is preserved for a conclusive judgement. Indeed 8HevXIIgr shows remarkable signs of a . Greek tradition that has been frequently corrected towards something very similar to what seems to have been the form of the Hebrew text with emerging authority in the second half of the ﬁrst century BCE and thereafter. Mur88 is also a representative of the tradition represented by the MT. Though Tov has preferred not to class any manuscripts of the Twelve as akin to the supposed Vorlage of the LXX, it is quite likely that there is evidence for such a text-type in the collection. To begin with 4QXIIc seems to be akin to the text represented in the LXX, and the text of Hosea in 4QpHosa shares several features with the supposed Vorlage of LXX Hosea. Some copies of the Twelve are indeed nonaligned, with variants sometimes in agreement with one or other texttype already known and sometimes with readings that are distinctive. For Tov, in this group belong 4QXIIa,c,d?,e,g, ﬁve of the Cave 4 copies of the Twelve. Overall for the Qumran caves alone Tov has suggested that 44 % of the books outside the Torah have textual aﬃnity with what is later represented in the MT, 3% with the LXX, and the remaining 53 % are non-aligned.53 It is intriguing to see that for the Twelve his ﬁgures are 25 % possibly aligned as proto-Masoretic, none with the Vorlage of the LXX, and 75 % as non-aligned. If Fuller’s opinions are followed, apart from his apparent error in the summary opinion on 4QXIIe, and with taking 5QAmos as non-aligned, ﬁgures closer to Tov’s norms are in evidence for the Twelve too: in this case 50 % (44%) of the Qumran manuscripts of the Twelve are proto-Masoretic, 12.5 % (3%) are septuagintal and 37.5 % (53 %) are non-aligned. What do these ﬁgures indicate? First, they indicate that taken as a collection, the data for the Twelve do not seem to provide anything sta51 This is the explicit purpose of the brief study by Russell Fuller, “The Form and Formation of the Book of the Twelve: The Evidence from the Judean Desert,” pp. 86–101. 52 Emanuel Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert—An Overview and Analysis of the Published Texts,” in: Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov (eds), The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries (London/New Castle, 2002), p. 154. 53 Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert,” pp. 154–157.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

33

tistically abnormal from what is emerging as the picture for the scriptural manuscripts overall, even though there are very few scriptural manuscripts in the Qumran collection whose textual aﬃlation all are agreed upon. Second, they indicate more signiﬁcantly that disagreements about textual aﬃliation may arise because analysts are really still using too crude a mechanism for working out the aﬃnities of individual manuscripts. With the Twelve, as with most of the other scriptural books, there is still an immense amount of work to be undertaken to sort the evidence out suitably. The second overall approach that needs to be taken has already been mentioned indirectly. For each book of the Twelve there needs to be a fresh evaluation of its text in light of all the evidence from the scrolls. For each scriptural manuscript the data for each book need to be taken separately and for the citations in other works, such as the pesharim, the data needs careful presentation so that variants introduced by the commentator are acknowledged as continuous with earlier scribal practices, but clearly distinguished from other variants which may attest to the transmission of the individual book much more widely.54 D. Signiﬁcance for the Collection of the Twelve As is now well known, the various Judaean desert manuscripts provide some evidence for how the books of the Twelve were passed on. The Greek version of the Twelve was probably translated by a single person,55 so the Septuagint provides evidence for the collection of the Twelve at the time of its translation.56 The evidence from the Judaean desert is diverse. A minimalist approach for maximum certainty is taken by Emanuel Tov: “The books of the Minor Prophets were included in one scroll in MurXII, 4QXIIb and 4QXIIg”,57 but it is probable that more than those three scrolls contained the complete collection of the Twelve. 54 A valuable start along these lines has been made by Russell E. Fuller, “Minor Prophets,” in: Lawrence H. Schiﬀman and James C. VanderKam (eds), Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York, 2000), pp. 554–557. 55 So notes Emanuel Tov, “Approaches towards Scripture Embraced by the Ancient Greek Translators,” in: Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, Friedrich Avemarie and Gerbern S. Oegema (eds), Der Mensch vor Gott: Forschungen zum Menschbild in Bibel, antiken Judentum und Koran: Festschrift für Hermann Lichtenberger zum 60. Geburtstag (Neukirchen, 2003), p. 216 and n. 11. 56 See also the reference to the Twelve, apparently as a unit, in Sir. 49:10. 57 Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert,” p. 142.

34

george j. brooke

In addition to the manuscripts cited by Tov, there is some reason to believe that the Twelve more or less as it is in the MT would have been found also in 4QXIIc, the most extensive set of fragments, and 4QXIIe. In addition 4QXIId, with its wide opening margin, may also have contained a complete copy of the Twelve. 8HevXIIgr probably . contained the whole of the Twelve too, though the ﬁrst four books are no longer extant. Other manuscripts may pose more questions than they answer, and Tov’s caution is to be respected before simplistic claims are made about the number of copies of the Twelve that deﬁnitely survive at Qumran. 5QAmos almost contains the opening verses of Amos and it is tempting to surmise that the manuscript contained only Amos, or Amos at the head of a collection of books. 4QXIIa has Jonah in a diﬀerent position, attesting a third order of the prophets in addition to that preserved in the MT and the LXX or its Hebrew Vorlage; it does not seem to have been long enough to have contained the Twelve apart from Jonah in the order which is known now, in either the Hebrew or the Greek. 4QXIIf has fragments of Jonah alone. Taken as a whole, for what may be deemed to be the scriptural texts of the Twelve, there is as much variety as exists for several other scriptural compositions, such as Exodus, Jeremiah and the Psalms. Overall a strong case can be made on the basis of variant order alone that there was more than one literary edition of the Twelve. As with the editions of the Psalter, for which some parts seem more stable than others, so it is also possible that for some constituent members of the Twelve the text was more stable than for others. Taken as a collection and as individual books, the Twelve has a complex history of transmission; the contribution of the evidence from the Judaean desert to the better understanding of that complexity has yet to be fully described and understood.

II. The Use of the Twelve in the Non-Scriptural Scrolls from Qumran A. In general Although about half of the collection of nearly nine hundred manuscripts from the caves at and near Qumran can be classiﬁed as nonscriptural and non-sectarian, very few of them have as yet been recog-

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

35

nised as relating directly or indirectly to the Twelve, either individually or as a collection. For example, while there are many para-biblical prophetic compositions amongst the non-sectarian texts,58 it has been observed that there do not seem to be any rewritten para-biblical forms of any of the Twelve in the Qumran library. Why this is so has yet to be adequately explained. Given the variety of the textual evidence already described brieﬂy in this paper, it is unlikely that the lack of para-biblical forms of the Twelve was the result of their stability as a collection and for the most part textually too. Whatever the explanation, there are para-biblical compositions concerning Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and possibly also Isaiah, but none for the Twelve. This is not to say that there is no reﬂection of any of the Twelve in non-sectarian literature. It is necessary only to cite one well-known example from a pre-sectarian wisdom text to show that there were signiﬁcant uses of some parts of the Twelve. It is not the style of wisdom literature to cite authoritative texts explicitly; wisdom texts are more akin to poetry than to explicit commentary.59 Nevertheless there is clear allusion to the Book of Remembrance (spr zkrwn) of Mal. 3:16 in Mûs¯ar l˘e-M¯evîn (4Q417 1 i 15–16): “And written in His presence is a book of memorial of those who keep His word. And that is the appearance/vision of the meditation on a book of memorial.”60 In the wider context, this wisdom composition seems to refer to two heavenly books, one which is engraved as a record of the wicked and their punishments, and one which is a book of remembrance for the rewards due to the righteous. By contrast with the non-sectarian compositions, the Twelve are reﬂected in a widespread way in many of the sectarian compositions found in the Qumran caves. On the basis of the evidence provided in the ﬁrst major section of this paper, it is clear that the Twelve were known as a collection by the Essene movement. The question arises whether they were read and interpreted as a collection or merely as 58 See George J. Brooke, “Parabiblical Prophetic Narratives,” in Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam (eds), The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (Leiden, 1998), pp. 271–301. 59 On the use of scripture in the Qumran wisdom texts see George J. Brooke, “Biblical Interpretation in the Wisdom Texts from Qumran,” in: Charlotte Hempel, Armin Lange and Hermann Lichtenberger (eds), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, BETL 159 (Leuven, 2002), pp. 201–220. 60 John Strugnell and Daniel J. Harrington, Qumran Cave 4.XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2, 4QInstruction (Mûs¯ar l˘eM¯evîn): 4Q415 ﬀ., DJD 34 (Oxford, 1999), p. 155.

36

george j. brooke

separate books. Much recent scholarly activity on the redaction of the Twelve has attempted to discover whether the compilers of the collection, or of its constituent parts, had any overall literary or theological intentions as they set about their ongoing work.61 Surprisingly, none of the substantial arguments of that scholarship has looked to the sectarian use of the Twelve in any detail for support in understanding how the Twelve might be perceived as a unity. It is time that a start was made to set that position right so a few comments will be oﬀered here to set the ball rolling. B. Sectarian Appreciation of the Twelve as a Collection It seems as if in the Qumran community and in the wider movement of which it was a part, the Twelve were appreciated both as a collection and as individual members of that collection. It is certainly true that the explicit sectarian commentaries on some of the Twelve never treat more than one of the Twelve at a time. Thus there are independent commentaries on Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah and possibly Malachi (4Q253a). But the way in which these six minor prophets are treated in a similar manner discloses an attitude to them which is consistent and coherent in an overarching way. It is possible that all the Twelve, even including Jonah, were treated similarly because the materials they contained were understood as sharing much in outlook and in potential for application to the circumstances of the community. This adoption of the Twelve as a group may indeed reﬂect something of how the separate books came to belong together in the ﬁrst place, as the earlier books were taken over by new communities and read in new contexts, notably as some of the books moved from a northern origin to a southern setting. It seems as if the Twelve were appreciated as a group for the kinds of theological and historical perspectives which they contained, but that their group identity never suppressed the speciﬁc character and value of the individual books of the Twelve, some of which took pride of place. 61 See especially, Paul R. House, The Unity of the Twelve, Bible and Literature Series 27 (Sheﬃeld, 1990); James Nogalski, Literary Precursors to the Book of the Twelve, BZAW 217 (Berlin, 1993); James Nogalski, Redactional Processes in the Book of the Twelve, BZAW 218 (Berlin, 1993); several contributions to James W. Watts and Paul R. House (eds), Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D.W. Watts, JSOTSup 235 (Sheﬃeld, 1996); James D. Nogalski and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve, SBL Symposium Series 15 (Atlanta, 2000).

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

37

The Number Twelve. Before considering in slightly more detail wherein lay the appeal of the Twelve, both collectively and severally for the Qumran covenanters, let us consider brieﬂy the number twelve. Although several scrolls refer to the number twelve as underlying some aspects of the sectarian community’s organisation, nowhere is there any explicit reference to the Twelve Minor Prophets as a part of the tradition which underlies the use of the number twelve as an organising principle. The most likely explanation for this is that the community understood itself to be the true Israel, and as such, the heirs of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were the only true representatives of Israel as it had been constituted at the foot of Sinai. Although prophecy and its interpretation were highly signiﬁcant for the community, it seems that the number twelve did not carry a prophetic signiﬁcance and that the Twelve prophets were not used as a symbolic unit. Intertextual Exegesis of the Twelve. Although several sectarian compositions cite or allude to passages of the Twelve, the implicit and explicit scriptural exegesis of the Damascus Document (CD) discloses most obviously the importance given to the Twelve. It is noteworthy that of the sixteen explicit quotations with introductory formulae in CD seven are from the Twelve, but only six from the Torah. The Twelve are a major seam which the exegetes represented by CD mined with gusto. Furthermore, it seems that the Twelve were not plundered for quotations in an arbitrary fashion, but were read in an intertextual fashion. This intertextuality was of two kinds: there was intertextuality between the consituent members of the Twelve and other authoritative books apart from the Twelve, and there was an internal dynamic amongst the members of the Twelve themselves. There is no doubt that the exegetical insights of the various sections of the Damascus Document have a complex history and have been edited together over time as the composition developed. However, the exegesis of the ﬁnal form of the composition, particularly as it is represented in the Cairo A manuscript, has been expounded elegantly by Jonathan Campbell.62 Campbell has noted that of the Twelve of particular importance in CD are Hosea 3–5, Amos 5 and 9, Micah 2–3, Zechariah 6, 11 and 13, and Malachi 1 and 3. He has argued that the preoccupation with the theme of exile drove the selection of texts and Jonathan G. Campbell, The Use of Scripture in the Damascus Document 1–8, 19–20, BZAW 228 (Berlin, 1995). 62

38

george j. brooke

that together with that overall theme many of the references from the Twelve play an important role in informing the composition’s eschatological picture. Campbell has divided the Damascus Document into three “historical” sections and ﬁve “midrashic” ones. Though some of the divisions might be disputed, they serve a useful heuristic function. In the opening historical section allusions to Hosea play an important part: in CD 1:1– 2:1 Hosea features prominently at the start (Hos. 4:1), in the middle (Hos. 10:12) and at the end (Hos. 5:10); Mic. 2:12 also plays a role. In the midrashic section CD 6:11b–8:21 passages from Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zechariah and Malachi are variously used in juxtaposition with one another and alongside other scriptural works outside the Twelve; at the core of the section is a combination of Amos 5:26, Zech. 6:8 and Amos 9:11 (CD 6:14–17). Another intertextual reading of the Twelve is the use of Mic. 7:11 and Hab. 2:1 together at the end of a major historical section (CD 2:14– 4:12a); they form the climax of that section of text. The unit of text describes matters from the fall of the Watchers to the time of the writer, not as a straightforward historical narrative, but in terms of the admonitory exposition which justiﬁes those who are the implied readers and informs them of the need for ongoing vigilance. Thus the section of text ends as follows: But when the period corresponding to the number of these years is complete, there will no longer be any joining with the house of Judah but rather each one standing up on his watchtower. The wall is built, the boundary far away.63

In 1QpHab 6:12–7:5 Hab. 2:1 is also used eschatologically to describe a contemporary set of circumstances, but whereas there the prophet on his watchtower awaits a vision, in CD the individual is on his own, apart from the community, awaiting judgement. This is reinforced by a more extensive allusion to Mic. 7:11. Mic. 7:8–20 is commonly understood as an early post-exilic addition to the book. The extract used here in the Damascus Document ﬁts with the notion that after the community’s period of exile the boundaries of the community are ﬁrmly established. There will be no late entrants. What in Micah forms part of a promise for the rebuilding of Jerusalem has become a deﬁnition of group identity at the eschaton or in the time immediately Trans F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition Vol. 1 (Leiden/Grand Rapids, 1997), p. 557. 63

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

39

preceding it. The combination of these two items from the Twelve powerfully encourages insiders to stay inside and to act as part of the protected community which will be privileged at the day of judgement. This combination is signiﬁcant for another point; it shows that the exegete was able to pull together phraseology from two of the Twelve and make them into a new whole. In the midrashic section CD 19:33b–20:34 Hos. 3:4 is used in combination with Mal. 3:16–18 (CD 19:15–18) to describe the principal features of the ﬁnal age of wrath after the death of the Teacher. Once again the extracts from the Twelve are used to deﬁne the community at the eschaton and to disclose that the righteous will indeed be distinguished from the wicked. The combination of passages indicates that the signiﬁcant intertexts for several passages from any one of the Twelve were to be found in other books of the Twelve. This early integrated reading of the twelve by these sectarians in the second century BCE need to be used as a guide by modern scholars as they seek unifying principles behind the various constituent parts of the Twelve. Running Exegesis of the Twelve. Most well-known of all the exegetical compositions found in the Qumran caves are the so-called pesharim. Though traditionally divided into two groups, the continuous and the thematic, it has become increasingly clear that such a division is somewhat misleading, not the least because some of the so-called continuous pesharim share several features with their more thematic counterparts. Nevertheless, the division permits the observation that at least some dimension of the exegesis at Qumran was controlled by the scriptural text itself. Although it was not the case that every word required interpretation, in some instances certainly every pericope did. The way in which the continuous pesharim give priority to the scriptural text should inhibit modern readers from reading the compositions solely as quasi-allegorical commentaries in which the scriptural text has little signiﬁcance in itself. Such a view reduces the use of scripture to a matter of convenience which in some way simply serves to justify what the commentator wanted to say based on entirely other grounds. The search in the pesharim for the history of the Qumran community and the wider movement of which it was a part has often resulted in the scriptural text cited in the pesharim being ignored by modern commentators. The general point to be noted here in relation to the modern investigation of the redactional history and coherence of the Twelve concerns whether the continuous pesharim as a set represent an integrated reading of the Twelve. In the Damascus Document

40

george j. brooke

the history, identity and theological preferences of the movement are displayed not least through quotations and allusions to Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah and Malachi. Of these there seem to exist continuous pesharim on Hosea, Micah, Habakkuk, and Malachi, while Amos plays a signiﬁcant part in the largest extant portion of 4Q174, a thematic commentary, and Zechariah (together with Micah and Nahum) plays a part in the fragmentary exegesis of the Psalms in 4Q177, another thematic commentary. Is it a mere coincidence that there is considerable overlap between those books of the Twelve that are used extensively in the Damascus Document and those that feature in continuous running exegesis? It seems quite possible that such an overlap suggests something of the overall coherence of the exegetical strategy behind the composition of the continuous pesharim;64 such a coherence may be integral to the better understanding of the redactional processes involved in the production of the Twelve as a collection. Signiﬁcant Echoes of the Twelve. Apart from the Damascus Document and the continuous and thematic commentaries which share much in outlook with it, not least with regard to the handling of particular sections of the Twelve, there are several signiﬁcant echoes of the Twelve in the other sectarian compositions found at Qumran. By way of example alone three can brieﬂy be mentioned. First, though there may be some debate about when the Essene or proto-Essene movement took itself away from the sacriﬁcial service of the Jerusalem temple, there can be no doubt that the key sectarian Rule of the Community envisaged the community as a spiritual substitute for the temple. In both 1QS 9:4–5 and 4QSd there is an allusion to Hos. 6:6 to justify the acceptability of spiritual sacriﬁce, at least as an interim measure. Second, though an eschatologically motivated view of the world was a key part of the sect’s way of life, so also was a basic set of virtues. It is worth noting that the Twelve played a key role in underpinning such a list of virtues which has become virtually paradigmatic for the community. Mic. 6:8 and Zeph. 2:3 seem to play a key role in the list of virtues in the Rule of the Community (1QS 5, 8; 4QSd; 4QSb) and its counterpart in the Address of the Maskil to the Sons of Dawn (4Q298).65 64

It is interesting to note both that Nahum barely features in the Damascus Document and that the Nahum pesher is widely acknowledged to be distinctive amongst the continuous pesharim for a number of reasons. 65 See S.J. Pfann and M. Kister, “Words of the Maskil to all Sons of Dawn,” in: Tor-

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

41

Third, in texts other than the Damascus Document and the pesharim there are references to the day of judgement which seem to be based on passages from the Twelve. In 4Q525, fragments 15, 21 and 22 resonate with phrases that seem to have aﬃnities particularly with parts of Joel 1:19–2:11.66 Thus the major issues of withdrawal from the temple, daily behaviour, and eschatological outlook are justiﬁed and described by implicit references to passages from the Twelve; the Twelve clearly played a signiﬁcant role in the community’s self-understanding. Key Motifs. However, beyond such general themes which echo the Twelve in numerous ways, there are certain key motifs in the sectarian writings which depend on the Twelve. Again, there is room to mention just three. First, it seems very likely, as has long been pointed out, that the titular designation or sobriquet, mwrh hs. dq (and its variations; Teacher of Righteousness), derives from Hos. 6:3, “he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water (ywrh) the earth,” Hos. 10:12, “that he may come and rain righteousness (wyrh s. dq) upon you,” and Joel 2:23: “for he has given you the early rain for your vindication (hmwrh ls. dqh).”67 These passages are thought by many commentators to lie behind the possibly autobiographical section of the hymn in 1QHa 16:16: “But you, my God, you have placed in my mouth as it were an early rain (kywrh gˇsm) for all […] and a spring of living water.”68 Second, the community’s eschatological outlook is formed in part by the expectation of the return of Elijah. Mal. 3:23–24 is the key to such an expectation and its rephrasing as it is mentioned in the very fragmentary 4Q558 and also in 4Q521 2 iii 2.69 Third, although only a few sectarian compositions describe and discuss messianism, it is clear that alongside the appeal that is made to certain passages of Isaiah, it is certain books of the Twelve that provide much of the shape of Qumran leif Elgvin et al. (eds), Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1, DJD 20 (Oxford, 1997), p. 16; Charlotte Hempel, “The Qumran Sapiental Texts and the Rule Books,” in: Charlotte Hempel, Armin Lange and Hermann Lichtenberger (eds), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, BETL 159 (Leuven, 2002), pp. 293–294. 66 See the helpful list of parallels compiled by Jacqueline C.R. de Roo, “Is 4Q525 a Qumran Sectarian Document?” in: Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans (eds), The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran After Fifty Years, JSPSup 26 (Sheﬃeld, 1997), pp. 343–344. 67 As suggested by André Dupont-Sommer, Le Livre des Hymnes découvert près de la mer Morte (1QH): Traduction intégrale avec introduction et notes, Semitica 7 (1957), p. 65, n. 5. 68 Trans Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition Vol. 1 (Leiden/Grand Rapids, 1977), p. 181. 69 On Elijah redivivus see Géza G. Xeravits, King, Priest, Prophet: Positive Eschatological Protagonists of the Qumran Library, STDJ 47 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 184–191.

42

george j. brooke

messianic expectation. The overall persistence of a dual messianism in sectarian texts seems to take its cue from the “two sons of oil” of Zech. 4:14 which is alluded to plainly in 4Q254 4 2.70 However, it is Amos 9:11 that plays a key role in underlining the Davidic character of Qumran messianic expectation. Used explicitly in the Damascus Document and 4Q174, this text is understood to assert that there will be a Davidic ruler who will arise to save Israel.71 As with key areas of the community’s selfunderstanding, so also in relation to major ﬁgures, the Twelve played a signiﬁcant role in the formation of the community’s ideas. From this brief survey of the Twelve in sectarian intertextual exegesis, in its running commentaries, in its self-understanding, and references to leading ﬁgures, past, present and future, the role of the Twelve cannot be denied. Perhaps within the Twelve there was a preference for particular passages, some of which occur more than once: there might have been a kind of “canon within the canon” of the Twelve.72 Nevertheless there seems to have been a coherent and integrated reading strategy for the Twelve, a strategy from which modern interpreters of the Twelve might learn for how the Twelve came to be in an earlier period.

Conclusion This brief survey of some of the materials from the Judaean desert relating to the Twelve has disclosed that there is much work still to be done on the transmission of the text of the Twelve in the late Second Temple period. For the Twelve the data from the desert challenge the text-critical methods used for their analysis so far and demand whether the theory of multiple literary editions might not account better for the 70 See the detailed comments by Craig A. Evans, “‘The Two Sons of Oil’: Early Evidence of Messianic Interpretation of Zechariah 4:14 in 4Q254 4 2,” in: Donald W. Parry and Eugene C. Ulrich (eds), The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, STDJ 30 (Leiden, 1999), pp. 566–575. 71 On this passage within the context of emerging messianism and in the Qumran sectarian texts see, amongst others, John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York, 1995), pp. 24, 61, 72, 80. 72 For general comments on this approach to scripture in the sectarian compositions see George J. Brooke, “‘The Canon within the Canon’ at Qumran and in the New Testament,” in: Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans (eds), The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran After Fifty Years, JSPSup 26 (Sheﬃeld, 1997), pp. 242–266.

the twelve minor prophets and the dead sea scrolls

43

evidence. In addition the place of the Twelve, both as a whole and in its constituent books, in the reading strategies of the Qumran sect and the wider movement of which it was a part need to be revisited as a possible contribution to how the Twelve might have come to be a coherent and integrated collection. More attention should be given to the inﬂuence of the Twelve on the developing ideology of the Essene movement and the Qumran group which sprang from it. It is common to read of the importance of Deuteronomy and Isaiah as formative scriptural texts for the Qumran community; it is also becoming common for the inﬂuence of Genesis and the Psalms to be recognised. It is now imperative for all those interested in them that alongside those four heavyweights, the Twelve take their rightful position.

LA RECONSTRUCTION DU TEMPLE SELON LA SEPTANTE DE ZACHARIE C. Dogniez Comparées aux données bibliques relatives à la reconstruction du Temple dans les livres d’Esdras et d’Aggée, les allusions à ce motif sont peu nombreuses en Zacharie et en quelque sorte marginales par rapport à la thématique d’ensemble du livre. Pourtant, le matériel prophétique de Zacharie est fréquemment exploité lorsqu’il s’agit de comprendre cette période de l’histoire juive durant laquelle le Temple fut reconstruit. Les livres d’Esdras eux-mêmes associent étroitement la reconstruction du Temple à Aggée et Zacharie en présentant ces deux prophètes comme les inspirateurs et les guides1 de ce mouvement essentiel que fut la restauration du culte à Jérusalem. A partir des rares éléments sur la reconstruction du Temple que nous lisons dans la LXX de Zacharie, nous nous proposons dans la présente étude sinon de déterminer précisément l’image que les traducteurs grecs ont voulu donner de ce moment historique—les intentions du traducteur étant toujours diﬃcilement accessibles—, du moins d’examiner celle qui s’en dégage pour le lecteur, et ce, en nous appuyant tant sur les points d’accord ou de désaccord entre la LXX et le TM que sur le lexique utilisé par les traducteurs pour désigner cet événement majeur dans la conscience juive.

I. Passages concernant la reconstruction du Temple En Zacharie, seuls les 8 premiers chapitres font allusion à la reconstruction du Temple. Et encore, les huit visions qui composent cette première partie ne parlent-elles jamais ni du Temple ni de sa reconstruction, évoqués seulement ailleurs dans cinq versets discontinus. Voici les passages en question, traduits selon le grec : 1 Cf. dans la LXX 1Esd 6:1–2 ; 7:3 ; 2 Esd 5:1–2 et 6:14; pour ces deux textes grecs, voir A. Canessa, Études sur la Bible grecque des Septante: I Esdras, thèse soutenue à l’Université de Provence en 1997 et T. Janz, Esdras II, thèse à paraître dans la collection La Bible d’Alexandrie aux Éditions du Cerf (Paris).

46

c. dogniez

En 1:16, après la vision des chevaux, la première mention du thème dit ceci : «C’est pourquoi voici ce que dit le Seigneur: Je me retournerai vers Jérusalem avec compassion et ma maison y sera reconstruite…»

En 4:8–9, faisant suite à la vision du chandelier, la deuxième allusion au Temple est formulée ainsi : «Et il y eut une parole du Seigneur s’adressant à moi en ces termes : 9 Les mains de Zorobabel ont posé les fondations de cette maison, ses mains la termineront…»

En 6:12, après la vision des quatre chars, le prophète Zacharie doit dire ceci à Josué : « …Voici ce que dit le Seigneur tout-puissant: Voici un homme, il a pour nom Ανατολ , d’en dessous de lui, il y aura des pousses, et il construira la maison du Seigneur»2.

En 6:15, le prophète clôt ainsi le chapitre sur ce même thème : «Et ceux qui sont loin d’eux viendront et construiront dans la maison du Seigneur».

Enﬁn, en 8:9, la référence au Temple prend place dans un oracle d’encouragement au peuple : «Voici ce que dit le Seigneur tout-puissant: Que vos mains soient fortes, vous qui entendez en ces jours ces paroles de la bouche des prophètes, depuis le jour où ont été posées les fondations de la maison du Seigneur tout-puissant, depuis que le temple a été construit.»

II. Les écarts avec le TM Pour ces cinq versets grecs, la traduction, dans l’ensemble, est très ﬁdèle à son modèle : l’ordre des mots, le nombre des mots, ainsi que le découpage du texte sont à peu près identiques dans la version grecque et dans la Bible hébraïque. Quelques écarts, cependant, peuvent être relevés : – en 6:12, le traducteur ne donne pas d’équivalent au mot øîàì, qui introduit la parole du Seigneur; ce «moins » du grec résulte sans doute d’une uniformisation de la formule qui apparaît majoritaiEn 6:13, le TM mais non le grec reprend la ﬁn de 6:12 : «C’est lui qui bâtira le temple de YHWH ». 2

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 47 rement en Zacharie sous sa forme courte, sauf en 7:9 où le grec, conformément à l’hébreu, donne λγων. – en 8:9, la LXX s’écarte du TM que l’on peut, avec D. Barthélemy3, traduire ainsi : « Que vos mains soient fortes, vous qui entendez en ces jours ces paroles de la bouche des prophètes, qui étaient présents au jour où fut fondée la maison du Seigneur des puissances, pour que l’on construise le temple ». De nombreux commentateurs du TM ont considéré cette phrase comme une glose en raison de sa syntaxe chaotique et de sa structure déroutante. Le traducteur grec a, semble-t-il, lu íåéî, au lieu de íåéá, par suite d’une confusion du beth et du mem, et propose une structure syntaxique diﬀérente de celle du TM : au lieu d’évoquer la pose des fondations pour la reconstruction à venir du Temple comme date à laquelle les prophètes ont pris la parole, le grec indique plutôt la durée de la prophétie et, étrangement, met sur le même plan, comme s’il s’agissait de deux événements du passé, la pose des fondations et la reconstruction du Temple, alors que cette dernière étape, comme nous le verrons, est toujours annoncée comme un événement futur, ou à tout le moins, ici dans le TM, comme un projet non encore réalisé. Ainsi, à l’exception du changement dans la construction verbale qui introduit en Za 8:9 l’idée, absente du TM, que la reconstruction du Temple est déjà eﬀective, aucune des modiﬁcations eﬀectuées par le traducteur des XII n’aﬀecte globalement le sens de ces cinq références à la reconstruction du Temple.

III. La terminologie architecturale grecque Le lexique employé par le traducteur mérite également que l’on y prête attention, car la littéralité d’une traduction se mesure bien sûr au décalque de la structure de la langue de départ mais aussi aux choix des équivalences lexicales : celles-ci peuvent être proches ou, au contraire, très libres par rapport au sens des termes hébreux correspondants, mais aussi systématiques ou diversiﬁées.

D. Barthélemy, Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament. 3. Ezéchiel, Daniel et les 12 Prophètes, OBO 50/3 (Fribourg-Göttingen, 1992), p. 969. 3

48

c. dogniez

Le premier mot sur lequel il convient de nous arrêter est celui qui désigne l’édiﬁce à construire. Dans nos versets, le traducteur utilise majoritairement le mot οκος, «la maison », sauf en 8:9 où il emploie νας, « le temple », alors que le TM oﬀre une plus large répartition de deux termes, úéá, « la maison », en 1:16 ; 4:9 et 8:9 et ìëéä, « le palais, le temple », en 6:12,15, et en 8:9. On constate par conséquent que le seul mot grec οκος traduit deux mots hébreux, úéá et ìëéä, tandis que νας est réservé à ìëéä. Remarquons tout d’abord que, comme ailleurs dans la LXX, en Zacharie, la maison de Dieu ne porte pas de nom spéciﬁque, puisque le terme οκος désigne aussi la maison particulière, celle des voleurs en Za 5:4, de Josias en 6:10, ou la maison de Juda et d’Israël en 8:13,15,19, entendue ici au sens de «la communauté ». La maison de Dieu, c’est en eﬀet le lieu où il habite, la résidence où il s’installe. De cette conception est née la notion centrale de résidence divine qui n’est d’ailleurs pas absente de Zacharie où, à deux reprises, en 2:14 et en 8:3, le Seigneur dit : « je m’installerai au milieu de Jérusalem ». On peut toutefois souligner que ce lieu n’est pas en Zacharie le Temple mais la ville. On rappellera par ailleurs que dans la LXX le terme οκος désigne beaucoup plus souvent la maison de Dieu que le mot νας qui traduit majoritairement ìëéä et n’apparaît que tardivement dans la LXX ; absent de l’Hexateuque, rare dans 1–2 Règnes et chez les prophètes préexiliques, νας devient plus courant en 3–4 Règnes, dans les Paralipomènes, en Ezéchiel et chez les prophètes postexiliques. Il importe enﬁn de souligner que νας, comme ìëéä, désigne aussi bien le palais royal, un temple païen—par exemple celui de Nabuchodonosor4—que le Temple de Jérusalem5. S’il est donc diﬃcile d’expliquer le choix de οκος pour rendre ìëéä en Za 6:12 et 15, là où l’on attendrait νας, on peut cependant faire remarquer que, bien qu’exceptionnelle dans la LXX, cette équivalence se retrouve dans ce même contexte dans d’autres livres bibliques, par exemple en 2Esd 3:6, 10 ; 4:1 ; 5:14, 15 ; 6:5, mais qu’elle est, en revanche, absente d’Aggée qui réserve νας à ìëéä en 2:9(10), 15(16), 18(19). En Zacharie, le traducteur paraît donc employer les mots οκος et νας comme des synonymes ; on peut néanmoins voir dans cette unique occurrence de νας, à la ﬁn de Za 8:9, un souci de variation stylistique, reproduisant ﬁdèlement la variation lexicale de l’hébreu qui donne au sein de ce même verset úéá et ìëéä. 4 5

Cf. 1Esd 1:39; 2 Esd 5:14. Cf. 1Esd 2:14; 4:45 ; 5:53s. ; 2 Esd 6:5.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 49 Pour désigner le Temple de Jérusalem6, le traducteur de Zacharie avait à sa disposition d’autres mots que οκος et νας, par exemple : – le néologisme γασμα, «le sanctuaire », qui nomme en Lam 1:10 ; 2:7, 20 ; en Dan Th 9:17 ; en 2Par 20:8 ; 26:18 et 30:8 le Temple de Jérusalem, mais qui n’est jamais utilisé dans la LXX pour traduire úéá ni ìëéä. – τ για, littéralement «les choses saintes », que le traducteur utilise en Is 43:28 pour ùã÷, «le sanctuaire »; de même en Is 44:28, où il est explicitement fait mention de la reconstruction du Temple, ìëéä est rendu par οκος γις μου. – ερν, un mot rare dans la LXX et absent des XII, nomme majoritairement le Temple en 1 Esdras7, beaucoup plus que οκος et νας, ainsi que dans les Maccabées où il désigne indiﬀéremment le Temple de Jérusalem et le temple des païens. En 1 Par 9:27, en un «plus » propre au grec, il est employé comme synonyme de οκος το εο ; il traduit du reste úéá en 1 Par 29:4. – βασλειον est utilisé une fois par le traducteur des XII, en Na 2:7, pour traduire ìëéä et également en Dan LXX 6:18(19), mais cette appellation semble avoir été réservée au palais royal, sans doute pour mieux le distinguer du temple divin. – enﬁn τμενος, qui désigne à l’origine une portion de territoire réservée au chef ou à la divinité, un enclos sacré, est utilisé dans les XII en Os 8:14 comme équivalent de ìëéä. Il apparaît donc que le grec dispose, comme l’hébreu, d’une variété de mots pour nommer un édiﬁce réservé à la divinité ou à un roi, mais que deux termes seulement—dans la LXX οκος et νας reproduisant à l’identique les mots du TM úéá et ìëéä—nomment plus particulièrement le Second Temple. En Zacharie, cependant, le grec privilégie le terme οκος, mettant ainsi, à la diﬀérence du TM, plus l’accent sur l’idée de maison au sens large que sur celle d’édiﬁce ; le Temple proprement dit, c’est-à-dire la réalité concrète et matérielle, n’est véritablement évoqué qu’avec l’introduction du mot νας en Za 8:9, lorsqu’il s’agit de dire en grec la reconstruction, en tant qu’elle est un événe6 Voir P. Joüon, «Les mots employés pour désigner le ‹ Temple › dans l’Ancien Testament, le Nouveau Testament et Josèphe », RSR 25 (1935), pp. 329–343. 7 Sur ce mot cf. Z. Talshir, « The Milieu of I Esdras in the Light of its Vocabulary », in: A. Pietersma et C. Cox (eds.), De Septuaginta, Studies in honour of J.W. Wevers on his sixty-ﬁfth birthday (Mississauga, 1984), pp. 131–132 et I Esdras. From Origin to Translation, SBLSCS Ser. 47 (Atlanta, Georgia, 1999), pp. 250–251.

50

c. dogniez

ment passé, qui a déjà eu lieu, et non, comme dans le TM, comme l’intention qui préside à la pose des fondations. Pour nommer l’activité de construction, le premier verbe qui apparaît dans le grec en Za 1:16 est νοικοδομε!ν, dont c’est l’unique emploi dans tout le livre. La signiﬁcation de ce verbe dépend du sens que l’on donne à ν", soit «élever vers le haut des constructions », «bâtir», soit « construire à nouveau », « reconstruire ». Ici, νοικοδομε!ν correspond dans le TM à äðá dont le sens courant est «construire » mais aussi «reconstruire »8. Le verbe grec a peu d’emplois dans la LXX et traduit presque toujours äðá9. Il est utilisé pour la première fois dans la LXX au sens de «construire à nouveau» en Dt 13:17 à propos d’une ville idolâtre vouée à l’anathème, et plus jamais reconstruite. Il est absent d’Aggée, ainsi que de 1 Esdras, tandis qu’on le trouve deux fois en 2Esd, en 4:13 pour parler d’une éventuelle reconstruction de la ville et en 6:14 à propos du Temple : dans ce passage, à côté de ο#κοδομε!ν, présent au début du verset, le recours à νοικοδομε!ν répond sans doute à un souci de varier la traduction des deux occurrences de äðá. En Zacharie, pour traduire la première occurrence de äðá, au v. 1:16, le traducteur grec aurait pu utiliser ο#κοδομε!ν comme il le fait ailleurs, en 6:12, 15 et 8:9. Aurait-il eu recours au composé uniquement au début de la prophétie pour préciser qu’il s’agit bien d’une reconstruction, et non d’une première construction, du Temple ? Le verbe νοικοδομε!ν est en ce sens tout à fait adéquat pour signiﬁer soit la restauration d’une maison en partie ou totalement détruite10, soit l’édiﬁcation d’une nouvelle maison en remplacement d’une première qui a existé mais qui n’est plus. Comme nulle part en Zacharie il n’est fait référence à une autre construction ayant autrefois existé, le traducteur grec pallierait ce manque d’information en y suggérant implicitement la chose par le choix de son verbe. En Aggée, en revanche, νοικοδομε!ν n’est jamais employé, mais le souvenir de la première maison est omniprésent : il est explicitement question de cette maison qui « est désertée » en 1:4 ou « déserte » en 1:9, ou encore de la «gloire passée de cette maison » en 2:3 ou de «cette dernière gloire qui surpassera la première » en 2:9. 8 Voir par exemple en Nb 21:27 ; Jos 6:26; Am 9:14; Is 25:2 et 44:26, où cependant la LXX n’emploie jamais νοικοδομε!ν. 9 Sauf en Os 2:6; Am 9:11 et Lam 3:7, 9 où il rend un autre verbe øãâ, «construire un mur, restaurer, reconstruire »; cf. P.D.M. Turner, « νοικοδομε!ν and Intra-Septuagintal Borrowing», VT 27 (1977), pp. 492–493. 10 Voir l’emploi d’un autre verbe en ce sens, $πορρ"πτειν, «réparer», en Sir 50:1.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 51 Le traducteur grec lève donc d’emblée toute ambiguité pour le lecteur de Zacharie : le choix du verbe νοικοδομε!ν en tête du livre indique une fois pour toutes que l’objet de la promesse divine est une reconstruction, le verbe simple ο#κοδομε!ν dans ses autres emplois en 6:12 ; 6:15 et 8:9 prenant de ce fait lui aussi le sens de «reconstruire ». Outre l’emploi de νοικοδομε!ν et de ο#κοδομε!ν, le traducteur emploie un troisième verbe qui appartient également au lexique de la construction ; il s’agit de εμελιον correspondant à ãñé. Ce verbe grec, comme son équivalent hébreu, se rencontre, dans ce même contexte de la reconstruction du Temple, en Ag 2:18, en 1 Esd 5:55 ; 6:19 et 2Esd 3:6, 10. Ailleurs, la LXX utilise aussi cette équivalence εμελιον / ãñé, par exemple à propos de la fondation d’une ville comme Jéricho en Jos 6:26 et 3R 16:34, ou Sion en Is 14:32, à propos de la fondation de la terre par Dieu en Ps 23(24): 2; 77(78): 9 ; 88(89): 12 ; 101(102): 26 ; 103(104): 5 ; en Jb 38:4; en Is 48:13 (avec la mention des mains) ; en Is 51:13, 16 et même en Za 12:1, mais aussi pour la fondation du Temple de Salomon en 3R 6:1c (= 1 R 5:31) et 2Par 8:16. Le choix du verbe εμελιον en Za 4:9 et 8:9 exprime donc parfaitement en grec cette pose des fondations qui constitue le moment majeur de toute édiﬁcation. Un quatrième terme, relatif à une autre tâche essentielle de la construction11, &πιτελε!ν, ﬁgure en Za 4: 9 ; il signiﬁe « accomplir, achever » et correspond ici dans le TM, en une équivalence exceptionnelle mais tout à fait appropriée, au piel de òöá qui a plusieurs sens, «couper, délier » mais aussi « accomplir » en parlant d’une œuvre (Is 10:12) ou d’une promesse (Lam 2:17) et «achever» uniquement dans notre verset. Absente d’Aggée, cette phase terminale des travaux est évoquée avec ce même verbe &πιτελε!ν en 1 Esd 4:55 ; 6:4, 13, 27, à côté de συντελε!ν en 1 Es 7:5 ou de τελειον en 2Esd 6:15. Ainsi, à l’exception d’une extension de l’emploi de οκος et de l’introduction du verbe composé νοικοδομε!ν, on peut donc dire que le traducteur grec de Zacharie calque sa terminologie de la construction du Temple sur celle du texte hébreu.

11

Cf. A. Petitjean, Les Oracles du Proto-Zacharie. Un programme de restauration pour la communauté juive après l’Exil, Etudes Bibliques (Paris, Louvain, 1969), p. 228.

52

c. dogniez IV. Ce que disent ces versets sur la reconstruction du Temple12

Au-delà de cette confrontation entre le TM et la LXX qui nous montre une assez grande ﬁdélité du traducteur à reproduire en grec la plupart des données hébraïques sur la reconstruction du Temple, tant du point de vue de la syntaxe que de la terminologie, revenons un instant sur ce que nous disent réellement ces quelques versets de Zacharie. Un premier constat s’impose : tous les énoncés relatifs à cet événement s’inscrivent, comme nous l’avons signalé, non pas dans les visions qui composent la majeure partie du livre, mais dans les oracles. Il s’agit donc des paroles du Seigneur lui-même, le plus souvent introduites avec la formule uniformisée en grec τ"δε λγει κ'ριος, « voici ce que dit le Seigneur », que nous lisons en 1:16 ; 6:12 et 8:9. En 4:8, il s’agit toujours d’un oracle du Seigneur mais la formule est diﬀérente dans le TM et dans le grec, qui donne à lire κα( &γνετο λγος κυρου πρς με λγων. En revanche, en 6:15, soit la référence à la reconstruction du Temple constitue la suite et ﬁn de l’oracle du Seigneur commencé en 6, 12, soit elle émane du prophète qui conclut ainsi sa promesse «et vous reconnaîtrez que le Seigneur tout-puissant m’a dépêché auprès de vous ». Quoi qu’il en soit, la reconstruction du Temple en Zacharie est intimement liée à la parole divine, et toujours présentée comme une œuvre inspirée par Dieu. Une autre caractéristique propre à ces données bibliques tient au fait que la reconstruction du Temple n’y est pas décrite comme une seule et même opération mais comme une œuvre à accomplir en trois étapes et selon des temps diﬀérents. La première étape, mentionnée seulement dans la deuxième promesse de reconstruction puis dans la dernière, consiste dans la pose des fondations. Cette première partie des travaux est toujours présentée comme une activité appartenant au passé : en 4:9, on lit dans le grec &εμελωσαν (« les mains de Zorobabel ont posé les fondations ») et en 8:9 τεεμελωται («depuis le jour où ont été posées les fondations ») ; pourtant, le texte de Zacharie ne nous dit rien sur le temps de réalisation de cette première étape ; ce fait passé est donné une fois pour toutes comme un événement qui s’est déjà produit, sans que l’on sache à

12 Cf. P. Marinkovic, «What does Zechariah 1–8 tell us about the Second Temple », in : T.C. Eskenazi, K.H. Richards, Second Temple Studies 2. Temple and Communauty in the Persian Period, JSOTSup. 175 (Sheﬃeld, 1994), pp. 88–103.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 53 quelle date. Sans doute le passé marque-t-il l’antériorité de cette phase par rapport à celle de la construction proprement dite, mais l’évocation même de cette œuvre déjà accomplie souligne non seulement l’importance de ces travaux préliminaires, mais aﬃrme surtout, comme le dit A. Van Hoonacker13, «la certitude de la réalisation de la prédiction »; c’est en quelque sorte la garantie de l’achèvement de la construction du Temple. Du reste, le prophète Aggée ne manque pas de faire allusion en 2:18 à ce moment clé, comme à un événement accompli et surtout bien daté : « Appliquez donc votre cœur à partir de ce jour et par la suite, le vingt-quatrième jour du neuvième mois, le jour où a été fondé le temple du Seigneur». Les livres grecs d’Esdras font également plusieurs fois référence à ce temps primordial des fondations et donnent plus de détails sur les agents et la date. En 1 Esd 5:54–55, on apprend que Zorobabel, Josué, leurs frères, les prêtres lévites et tous ceux qui étaient venus de la captivité jusqu’à Jérusalem «posèrent les fondations (&εμελωσαν) du temple à la nouvelle lune du deuxième mois de la deuxième année à leur arrivée en Judée et à Jérusalem ». Cependant en 1 Esd 6:19, ce n’est plus Zorobabel, apprend-on, qui «jeta les fondations » (&νεβ"λετο το)ς εμελους), mais le gouverneur Sanabassar dont le nom n’apparaît jamais ni en Aggée ni en Zacharie. Dans 2 Esdras, le récit des fondations du Temple est à peu près identique à celui de 1 Esdras et mentionne les deux agents, Zorobabel et Sanabassar ; en 3:6, on lit en eﬀet que, la première année de Cyrus au septième mois, « la maison du Seigneur n’avait pas été fondée », puis, en 3:10, que la deuxième année de leur arrivée à Jérusalem, Zorobabel, Jésus, leurs frères, les prêtres lévites et tous ceux qui étaient venus de la captivité «posérent les fondations » (&εμελωσαν). Mais en 5:16, comme en 1 Esd 6:19, il est question de Sanabassar qui, conformément à l’avis donné par Cyrus la première année de son règne, «posa les fondations » (*δωκεν εμελους) du Temple. Pour résoudre cette diﬃculté historique, malgré la complexité de la chronologie selon laquelle les livres d’Esdras exposent les faits, plusieurs solutions que nous ne développerons pas ici ont été proposées ; soit il s’agit du même événement, la première fois raconté avec Zorobabel comme auteur des travaux, la seconde fois avec Sanabassar, soit il y eut une première tentative de fondation sous la direction de Sanabassar en 537, au début du règne de Cyrus, mais

13

Les Douze Petits Prophète traduits et commentés, Etudes Bibliques (Paris, 1908), p. 615.

54

c. dogniez

interrompue, puis reprise seulement vingt ans après par Zorobabel, lors d’une deuxième vague de retour à Jérusalem en 51814. Quoi qu’il en soit, il n’est nullement question en Zacharie d’une première tentative de fondation par Sanabassar qui pourrait justiﬁer que l’on parle de réparation de fondations, de restauration, plutôt que de fondations proprement dites ; si, pour l’étape de la construction, le traducteur grec parle bien en Za 1:16 de reconstruction, il n’évoque à aucun moment une restauration de fondations : alors qu’on trouve dans la LXX, par exemple en 2Par 24:4, 12, le verbe grec &πισκευαζειν pour parler de la restauration par Jôas de la maison de Dieu—le premier Temple—, ce verbe n’est jamais employé en Zacharie—ni en Aggée ni dans les livres d’Esdras d’ailleurs. Or, certains commentateurs du TM15 interprètent le verbe ãñé que l’on a en Za 4:9 et 8:9 au sens de « réparer, restaurer, reconstruire », aﬁn de ne pas exclure la tentative avortée de Sanabassar en 537. Ce n’est pas le cas, nous semble-t-il, dans le grec de Zacharie. La deuxième étape, la reconstruction proprement dite, en revanche, est toujours envisagée, dans le TM comme dans la LXX, comme une action qui n’a pas encore eu lieu mais doit se dérouler dans un temps futur; ainsi le grec donne les futurs νοικοδομη σεται en 1:16, ο#κοδομ σει en 6:12 et ο#κοδομ σουσιν en 6:15 ; le futur insiste clairement ici sur la réalisation dans l’avenir de la promesse qui est faite. On doit cependant rappeler que la divergence entre le grec et l’hébreu, en 8:9, rompt cette présentation uniforme de la deuxième étape de la construction puisqu’à l’inﬁnitif hébreu úåðáäì exprimant un but, un projet, une intention, le grec substitue le verbe /0κοδμηται au parfait ; ce temps qui exprime l’état présent d’une action qui a commencé dans le passé est peu cohérent avec les autres formulations, au futur, de cette même étape. A moins de penser qu’en ce passage, diﬃcile même en hébreu, l’introduction en grec d’un temps du passé relève en toute certitude d’une erreur du traducteur, on peut comprendre cette transformation, volontaire ou non, comme une actualisation du texte 14 Sur l’identiﬁcation, peu probable, de Zorobabel avec Sheshbassar, voir A. Lemaire, «Zorobabel et la Judée à la lumière de l’épigraphie (ﬁn du VIe s. av. J.C.) », RB 103 (1996), p. 55 ; C.C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (Chicago, 1910), p. 306; J. Lust, « The Identiﬁcation of Zerubbabel and Sheshbassar », ETL 63 (1987), pp. 90–95 et M. Saebo, «The Relation of Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel—Reconsidered », SEÅ 54 (1989), pp. 168–177. 15 Cf. A. Gelston, « The Foundations of the Second Temple », VT 16 (1966), pp. 232– 235.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 55 de Zacharie, rendant la réalité des faits bien présente. En eﬀet, comme le rappelle à plusieurs reprises A. Van Hoonacker16, au moment où Zacharie met ces annonces dans la bouche de YHWH, le Temple était déjà en voie de construction ; Aggée ne dit-il pas en 1:14 que Zorobabel, Josué et le reste du peuple avec eux ont fait des travaux dans la maison du Seigneur ? Ainsi, à la diﬀérence du TM qui donne uniformément en Zacharie un caractère apocalyptique à toutes les mentions de la reconstruction du Temple, le traducteur grec, qui pourtant reproduit partout ailleurs scrupuleusement cette vision abstraite, utopique, des faits, abandonne cette écriture « apocalyptique » lors de la dernière allusion à cet événement en Za 8:9, pour revenir à une énonciation au passé rendant mieux compte de l’indéniable réalité historique. Ce changement de perspective en grec est d’ailleurs tout à fait cohérent, sinon même conﬁrmé, nous semble-t-il, par l’emploi, en ce seul passage, du mot « temple » qui, mieux que l’abstrait « maison de Dieu », désigne bien un édiﬁce réel. Quant à la troisième et dernière étape, l’achèvement de l’édiﬁce, elle est mentionnée une seule fois en Za 4:9, et en nette opposition à l’évocation passée de la pose des fondations, avec un inaccompli exprimant une action future comme pour la phase de reconstruction. En ce passage, le traducteur donne le verbe &πιτελσουσιν, au futur— «ils termineront »—, comme pour mettre l’accent une fois encore sur l’assurance de la réalisation des plans providentiels. Mais la réalisation n’est jamais évoquée en Zacharie ; Aggée non plus ne parle jamais de la ﬁn de la reconstruction du Temple. Dans les livres d’Esdras, en revanche, on connaît avec précision la date à laquelle «fut achevée la sainte maison » : « le 23 du mois d’Adar de la sixième année du roi Darius », selon 1 Esd 7:5, et « le 3Adar », selon 2Esd 6:1517. Cette absence de dates pour l’une ou l’autre phase de la reconstruction du Temple en Zacharie peut s’expliquer par le caractère apocalyptique du message du prophète, par opposition à la précision chronologique des livres historiques que sont les livres d’Esdras, mais on peut peut-être aussi y voir la marque du caractère symbolique de cet événement majeur, correspondant certes à un fait historique réel, mais conçu avant tout comme l’expression abstraite de la manifestation du dessein divin. Op. cit., pp. 610.612.639. Cf. D. Barthélemy, CTAT 1 (1982), p. 537 ; Z. Talshir, I Esdras. A Text Critical Commentary, SBLSCS 50 (Atlanta, Georgia, 2001), p. 375. 16 17

56

c. dogniez

Si Zacharie nous informe peu, d’un point de vue historique, sur la réalité de la reconstruction du Temple, les rares allusions à cette entreprise nous renseignent-elles davantage sur celui à qui incombe cette tâche ? Le nom même de Zorobabel apparaît il est vrai dans les huit premiers chapitres de Zacharie, mais il est extrêmement rare et ﬁgure uniquement au chapitre 4, aux v. 6,7,9,10 ; ailleurs, Zorobabel n’est nommé nulle part18. En 1:16, l’annonce de la reconstruction du Temple, intimement liée au retour de la présence divine, ne désigne nommément aucun agent et reste anonyme. En 4:8–10, en revanche, Zorobabel est explicitement nommé comme l’auteur de la pose des fondations et de l’achèvement de la construction, mais il n’en demeure pas moins un agent divin19 dont le succès de l’entreprise, nous dit le v. 6, ne dépend ni d’un pouvoir ni d’une force quelconque mais de l’esprit divin. En 6:12, l’oracle ne mentionne plus Zorobabel comme responsable de la reconstruction du Temple, mais un «homme » nommé en grec Ανατολ , en hébreu çîö, et promis, selon le v. 13, à l’exercice du pouvoir avec, selon le grec, le prêtre « à sa droite » ou, selon le TM, « sur son trône »20. Mais rien ne nous dit explicitement en ce passage précis21 que Ανατολη et Zorobabel sont une seule et même personne. On peut même admettre que le titre çîö ou Ανατολη s’applique au grand prêtre Josué ici en 6:12 mais déjà en 3:822. Toutefois, la plupart des commentateurs du texte hébreu supposent que l’homme dont il s’agit en 6:12 est Zorobabel23. Si l’on se fonde sur le contexte et que l’on rapproche le v. 6:12 du v. 4:9, on constate en eﬀet que le nom de Zorobabel est associé au Temple. On peut 18 Josué n’est nommé qu’en 3:1–10 et 6:9–15. Sur ces mentions de Josué et de Zorobabel considérées comme des additions, voir P.L. Redditt, «Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the Night Visions of Zechariah » CBQ 54 (1992), pp. 249–259. 19 Sur ce thème déjà présent dans la tradition ugaritique et babylonienne, voir A. Petitjean, op. cit., p. 217 et A. Kapelrud, «Temple Building, A Task for Gods and Kings », Orientalia 32 (1963), pp. 56–62. 20 Sur cette répulsion du traducteur à parler de « trône » à propos du grand prêtre, voir A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 290–293. 21 Cf. W.D. Davies, L. Finkelstein (eds) The Cambridge History of Judaism, (Cambridge, 2000), p. 141. 22 Cf. A. Sérandour, «Zacharie », in : T. Römer, J.D. Macchi, C. Nihan (eds), Introduction à l’Ancien Testament, Le Monde de la Bible 49 (Genève 2004), pp. 462–463. 23 Sur la restauration du nom de Zorobabel à la place de celui de Josué au v. 11, voir A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 283–286, ainsi, par exemple, que P.L. Redditt, art. cit., pp. 256–257.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 57 aussi s’appuyer sur la terminologie, en faisant remarquer que l’appellation «mon serviteur», qui caractérise déjà Anatolè en 3:8 (« Car voici j’amène mon serviteur Anatolè »), s’applique normalement à Zorobabel si l’on se réfère à Ag 2:23 qui dit : « je te prendrai Zorobabel, ﬁls de Salathiel, mon serviteur». Par ailleurs, si l’on a recours à l’étymologie, étant donné que l’hébreu çîö évoque le début du nom de Zorobabel— zer signiﬁant « semence, descendance »—, il se pourrait bien, comme le pense A. Lemaire24, que l’on ait ici le nom propre de Zorobabel en hébreu qui n’est rien d’autre qu’une transcription du nom babylonien. Ce dont on est sûr, en tout cas, c’est que, hormis la mention de Zorobabel en 4:9, aucune des autres allusions à la reconstruction du Temple en Zacharie ne parle explicitement de Zorobabel sous ce même nom. Sur Zorobabel lui-même, le texte grec ou hébreu de Zacharie ne nous dit rien et l’on ignore tout de lui; qu’il est le ﬁls de Salathiel comme le mentionnent Ag 1:1,12,14; 2:2,23 ; 1 Esdr 5:5,47,54 ; 6,2 et 2Esdr 3:2,8 ; 5:2; 22:1, qu’il est issu de la lignée de David comme le précise 2Par 3:17, qu’il est gouverneur de Juda selon le TM ou de la tribu de Juda selon la LXX, selon Ag 1:1,12,14; 2:4, 21, et qu’il est l’élu de Dieu selon Ag 2:23. En cela, la caractérisation minimale de Zorobabel en Zacharie est très proche du Zorobabel dont nous parlent Esdras et Néhémie : en ces livres, il ne se voit conférer aucun titre et rien—hormis qu’il est le ﬁls de Salathiel—n’est dit sur ses origines25. La description de ce personnage est en revanche totalement diﬀérente en 1 Esdras : un long portrait tout à la gloire de Zorobabel, en 3:1–5:3, présente ce dernier comme une ﬁgure de la sagesse et comme la personnalité la plus importante de la période de la Restauration26 ; et en 5:5, Zorobabel est ainsi longuement qualiﬁé : « ﬁls de Salathiel, de la maison de David, de la lignée de Pharès et de la tribu de Juda ». On doit aussi convenir qu’à aucun moment il n’est explicitement question en Zacharie de Zorobabel comme d’un prince davidique auquel incomberait la responsabilité royale de reconstruire le Temple ; le mot « roi » est absent du texte, en hébreu comme en grec. Certes, plusieurs expressions peuvent évoquer une fonction royale : le mot «serviteur », ãáò en hébreu, δολος en grec, couramment employé dans la Art. cit., pp. 48–57. Cf. S. Japhet, «Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel—Against the Background of the Historical and Religious Tendencies of Ezra-Nehemiah », ZAW 94 (1982), pp. 68–69 et ZAW 95 (1983), p. 219. 26 Cf. S. Japhet, art. cit., (1982), pp. 68–69. 24 25

58

c. dogniez

Bible et qui s’applique ici en Za 3:8 et 6:12 au Germe ou, en grec, à Anatolè, est par exemple utilisé pour David comme un titre royal en Jer 33:21,22,26 (dans le TM seulement), en Ez 34:23, 24 ; 37:24 ; Ps 88(89), 4,21,40 ; 132:10. Le vocable hébreu çîö lui-même est également une appellation mise en relation avec le pouvoir royal en Jer 23:5 : « Je susciterai de David un germe juste : un roi régnera » ; de la même façon, la terminologie qui caractérise çîö en Za 6:12–13 relève de l’exercice royal puisqu’il est dit selon le TM : «et c’est lui qui en tirera gloire, il siégera et dominera sur son trône »; on peut toutefois noter que si, en grec, l’emploi de ρνος renvoit bien au roi, en revanche le choix du mot ρετ , « valeur », n’évoque pas tout à fait, sauf chez Homère peut-être27, la majesté, la splendeur royale contenue dans le mot hébreu ãåä correspondant28. On sait aussi, par ailleurs, que çîö et νατολ

étaient des titres royaux à l’époque ptolémaïque, l’un en usage dans la population sémitique, l’autre parmi les citoyens d’expression grecque29. Mais, en Zacharie, aucun de ces titres royaux ne s’applique nommément à Zorobabel. Seule la triple mention des mains de Zorobabel liées à la reconstruction du Temple, deux fois en Za 4:9 et une fois en 4:10, pourrait constituer un argument en faveur de la responsabilité royale de Zorobabel, si l’on songe à la tradition mésopotamienne, bien attestée dans les inscriptions, qui met l’accent sur le sens et l’importance des mains royales dans la fondation et la construction des sanctuaires30. En Ag 2:23, en revanche, la terminologie liée à l’idéologie royale est davantage marquée, puisqu’au qualiﬁcatif « mon serviteur » qui s’applique nommément à Zorobabel, vient s’ajouter le signe royal par excellence, « le sceau »31. Le texte de Zacharie demeure donc, tant en grec qu’en hébreu, extrêmement minimaliste sur la personne de Zorobabel, et de ses prérogatives royales, il n’en est pour ainsi dire pas question, du moins directement.

27 Cf. la note sur Ha 3:3 de M. Harl, Les Douze Prophètes, La Bible d’Alexandrie 23.4– 9 (Paris, 1999), p. 288. 28 Cf. A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 294–296. 29 Cf. A. Van den Branden, «I Titoli Tolemaici «Sâ Râ», smh sdq e νατολ1ν . . . δικααν », Bibbia e Oriente 6 (1964), pp. 60–72 et A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 199–200. 30 Cf. A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 229–230. 31 Sur la dignité royale de Zorobabel, voir D.L. Petersen, «Zerubbabel and Jerusalem Temple Reconstruction », CBQ 36 (1974), pp. 366–372 et F. Bianchi, « Zorobabele re di Giuda», Henoch 13 (1991), pp. 131–150.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 59 Que la reconstruction du Temple incombe à Zorobabel ou à un autre personnage nommé Germe ou Anatolè, force est de constater que ni le texte du TM ni celui de la LXX ne caractérisent ce bâtisseur du Temple explicitement comme le messie32. Pour rendre le terme hébreu çîö qui signiﬁe « germe, rejeton, rameau », mais qui désigne peut-être ici en Za 6:12 le nom propre de Zorobabel33 ou plus vraisemblablement, selon un usage politique du mot34, le descendant légitime, le traducteur grec n’a pas cherché à lui substituer un autre mot ; il en donne un équivalent exact en optant pour νατολ ; en eﬀet, rattaché à νατλλω qui signiﬁe « faire lever, se lever », ce mot peut avoir deux sens : généralement employé au pluriel pour le lever d’un astre ou pour le soleil levant35, νατολ a cependant aussi le sens végétal de «pousse »; ce deuxième sens est rare, non attesté semble-t-il dans la documentation papyrologique36, mais pas absent des textes grecs puisqu’on le lit une fois chez Philon (Leg. All. II, 10) et à nouveau dans la LXX, en Ez 16:7 et 17:1037. Ainsi le texte hébreu de Za 6:12, en lui-même, ne comporte pas de connotation messianique et le texte de la LXX ne l’ajoute en aucune façon38. Certes la tâche de constructeur de temple peut être considérée comme l’œuvre messianique par excellence, en ce sens qu’elle réaliserait l’oracle de Natan qui annonce en 2Sam 7:12–16 que YHWH suscitera « une semence… qui bâtira une maison » à son nom. On sait aussi que, très tôt dans la tradition juive, l’appellation même de «Germe » sera interprétée comme un titre messianique ; c’est

32 Sur l’évolution ultérieure du mot çîö comme titre appliqué au Messie, voir par exemple A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 194–206 et 285 avec la bibliographie. 33 Cf. A. Lemaire, art. cit., p. 51. 34 Cf. J. Swetnam, «Some Observations on the Background of ÷éãö in Jeremia 23,5a», Biblica 46 (1965), pp. 29–40. 35 Le choix du mot νατολ a pu être inﬂuencé par le double sens de la racine çîö signiﬁant «pousser» en parlant d’une plante mais aussi «briller, luire »; cf. J. Lust, «Messianism and the Greek Version of Jeremiah », in: C.E. Cox (ed.) VII Congress of the IOSCS, Leuven 1989 (Atlanta, Georgia, 1991), p. 91 et D. Grossberg, « The Dual Glow / Grow Motif », Biblica 67 (1986), pp. 547–554. 36 Cf. O. Montevecchi, « Nerone e l’Egitto. Postille », La parola del passato. Rivista di Studi Antichi, 160 (1975), pp. 56–57. 37 Sur les mots çîö et νατολ , voir par exemple M. Harl, «La «Bible d’Alexandrie » et les études sur la Septante. Réﬂexions sur une première expérience », Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993), p. 325, ainsi qu’une étude à paraître dans Les Douze Prophètes. Aggée, Zacharie, Malachie, La Bible d’Alexandrie, 23, 9–12. 38 Cf. J. Lust, «Messianism and Septuagint», in: J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Salamanca 1983 (Leiden, 1985), pp. 174–191 et « Messianism and the Greek Version of Jeremiah », art. cit., pp. 87–122.

60

c. dogniez

ce que fait par exemple le Targum39 ici, en Za 3:8 et 6:12, mais aussi pour les oracles d’Is 4:2 et de Jer 23:5 et 33:15. Ainsi, que ce soit dans le TM ou dans la version des LXX, ces cinq oracles sur la reconstruction du Temple en Zacharie nous disent en ﬁn de compte peu de choses sur la réalité historique ; ils insistent au contraire beaucoup sur cet événement, témoin et œuvre de la souveraineté divine, et font de son initiateur nommé tantôt Germe ou Anatolè, tantôt Zorobabel, une ﬁgure idéale qui cristallise en quelque sorte tout l’espoir du peuple juif. C’est en eﬀet grâce à ce personnage, décrit comme un intermédiaire divin, que se fait dans un futur proche, mais pas nécessairement eschatologique, la projection du retour dans le Temple reconstruit, symbole de la restauration de la paix et de l’abondance (Za 8:12) qui conduira à la conversion des nations (8:21) et signe du commencement d’un monde nouveau. Jusqu’à présent, hormis la divergence relevée en 8:9 dans laquelle la LXX présente la reconstruction du Temple comme un fait accompli et non comme un projet ainsi qu’on peut le lire dans le TM, nous avons pu constater une très grande ﬁdélité du traducteur à son modèle, y compris dans ses propres choix lexicaux qui inﬂéchissent assez peu le sens global du texte hébreu. V. Une pierre bien particulière : la pierre de l’héritage (Za 4:7) Il y a cependant un écart important dans le verset qui précède l’oracle de 4:8–9 : il n’y est pas explicitement question de la reconstruction du Temple mais de Zorobabel et d’une « pierre » qui a fait couler beaucoup d’encre tant le nom qui la désigne en hébreu est peu clair. Nous ne nous attarderons pas sur les diﬀérents sens accordés à l’expression unique en hébreu, äÖàøä ïáàä, désignant soit la pierre du sommet, la pierre faîtière40, soit la première pierre, c’est-à-dire la pierre de fondation41, façonnée pour la circonstance ou extraite des ruines de l’ancien 39 Cf. R.P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets (Edinburgh, 1989), p. 192 et 198. Sur cette désignation du Messie davidique à Qumran, en 4QFlor 1, 11, voir par exemple D. Dimant, « 4QFlorilegium and the Idea of the Community as Temple », in: A. Caquot, M. Hadas-Lebel, J. Riaud (eds), Hellenica et Judaica. Hommage à Valentin Nikiprowetzky (Leuven-Paris, 1986), pp. 182–183. 40 Cf. T. Chary, Aggée-Zacharie-Malachie (Paris 1969), p. 96 et A. Van Hoonacker, op. cit., p. 615. 41 Cf. A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 247–251.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 61 temple42, mais aimerions examiner ce que l’on a coutume de considérer comme une méprise du traducteur grec qui traduit l’hébreu par τ2ν λον τ3ς κληρονομας43. S’agit-il d’une erreur involontaire, c’està-dire d’une mauvaise lecture de äÖàøä lu comme une forme de Öøé indiquant la prise de possession, l’héritage, ou d’une modiﬁcation délibérée soit d’ordre littéraire pour résoudre une diﬃculté, soit exégétique pour signiﬁer autre chose, ou bien encore d’une diﬀérence de Vorlage44 ? S’il est diﬃcile de trancher entre ces diverses explications, on peut en revanche essayer de voir comment ce choix de traduction a pu émerger et s’il est cohérent avec le contexte dans lequel il s’insère. Même si le traducteur a pu avoir du mal à identiﬁer dans son modèle la forme grammaticale äÖàøä qui est un hapax, avec un ä ﬁnal dont on ne sait s’il s’agit d’une terminaison araméenne ou d’une marque d’un ancien accusatif de direction45, la racine est néanmoins bien connue de lui au sens premier de « tête », mais aussi au sens ﬁguré lorsqu’elle désigne la partie élevée d’une chose. On constate également que, lorsque la Bible évoque des pierres particulières, décrites avec des expressions quelque peu énigmatiques, les traducteurs de la LXX parviennent, en général, à trouver d’assez bons équivalents46. Ainsi, en Ps 117(118): 22, dans le célèbre verset qui évoque une pierre que les bâtisseurs avaient rejetée, devenue, äðô Öàøì selon le TM et « tête d’angle », κεφαλ1 γωνας selon la LXX, le mot Öàøì est bien identiﬁé, même si le grec ne lève pas tout le mystère sur ce qu’est réellement cette pierre spéciﬁque47. En Is 28:16, le mot hébreu äðô qui signiﬁe « coin, angle » est bien rendu par κρογωνια!ος pour nommer également une pierre d’angle. De même en Jer 28 (51): 26, là où il est question de deux pierres nommées dans le TM äðôì ïáà úåãñåîì ïáàå, « pierre d’angle et pierre de fondation », la LXX traduit ﬁdèlement par λον ε#ς γωναν κα( λον ε#ς εμλιον. Cf. E. Lipinski, ´ «Recherches sur le livre de Zacharie », VT 20 (1970), pp. 30–33. Voir les leçons des autres traducteurs, plus proches de l’hébreu : Aquila τον πρωτευοντα, Symmaque τον ακρον, Théodotion τον πτωτον. 44 E. Sellin, «Der Stein de Sacharja», JBL 50 (1931), pp. 242–249 et «Noch Einmal der Stein des Sacharja », ZAW 18 (1942–1943), pp. 59–77, opte pour un substrat hébreu diﬀérent du TM et voit dans l’expression de Za 4:7 une allusion au Kudurru babylonien désignant une sorte de borne marquant la possession d’un territoire. 45 Cf. A. Petitjean, op. cit., pp. 243–244. 46 Voir cependant en Gn 49:24 et en Za 10:4. 47 Cf. par exemple, M. Berder, « La pierre rejetée par les bâtisseurs » : Psaume 118, 22–23 et son emploi dans les traditions juives et dans le Nouveau Testament, Etudes Bibliques 31 (Paris, 1996). 42 43

62

c. dogniez

Dans le livre même de Zacharie, en 4:10, la pierre appelée, selon une expression unique dans toute la Bible, ìéãáä ïáàä, est bien rendue en grec par τ2ν λον τ2ν κασσιτρινον, «la pierre d’étain », conformément au sens adopté par Aquila, la Vulgate, le Targum, et même actuellement par bon nombre de chercheurs48. Devant cet eﬀort des LXX pour rester au plus près du texte-source, même lorsqu’il s’agit de formulations diﬃciles, et faute d’avoir accès à la Vorlage de la LXX, on est en droit de s’interroger sur les raisons de cette non restitution en grec du nom spéciﬁque de la pierre en Za 4:7, au proﬁt d’une expression indiquant tout autre chose qu’une pierre de construction. Pour tenter de justiﬁer l’émergence dans le grec de Za 4:7 de cette notion biblique emblématique de l’héritage, nous suggérerions volontiers qu’il ne s’agit pas là d’une simple bévue du traducteur grec. Si l’on comprend, selon la leçon majoritaire du grec &ξοσω attestée chez les Pères, que c’est Dieu qui fera sortir la pierre, l’expression grecque pourrait être une appellation symbolique de Zorobabel, destinée à souligner sa lignée davidique : telle est l’interprétation de Théodore de Mopsueste qui fait de ce dernier un diadoque de la royauté, en vertu de la promesse adressée à son grand père David49. En ce sens, la « pierre de l’héritage » serait comme un écho de la formule « chef sur son héritage » (avec ce même emploi de κληρονομα) qui caractérise Saül dans le « plus » du grec de 1 R 10:1. On soulignera du reste que l’on trouve ce même lien explicite entre les notions de chef et d’héritage dans l’Ecrit de Damas, en I, 7 lorsqu’il est question du plant que Dieu «a fait germer … pour hériter de sa terre ». Mais l’introduction en Za 4:7 du mot «héritage » peut aussi relever d’une autre exégèse, même si l’on adopte la leçon retenue par J. Ziegler, c’est-à-dire la troisième personne du singulier, &ξοσει, qui certes peut renvoyer à Zorobabel mais également au Seigneur. Si l’on considère en eﬀet le contexte proche de cette locution τ2ν λον τ3ς κληρονομας, force est de remarquer que les mots grecs «puissance » (δ'ναμις), « force » (#σχ'ς), ainsi que le terme «esprit » (πνεμα) au v. 4:6 évoquent la terminologie de l’esprit salviﬁque de l’Exode admirablement rappelé en particulier dans le cantique de Moïse. La δ'ναμις 48 Voir cependant A.S. van der Woude, «Zion as Primeval Stone in Zechariah 3 and 4 », in: W. Claassen (ed.), Text and Context. Old Testament ad Semitic Studies for F.C. Fensham, JSOTSup. 48 (Sheﬃeld, 1988), p. 243 ; T. Chary, op. cit., pp. 95–96. 49 Cf. PG 66, col. 529; Didyme, SC 83, rapporte la pierre au Sauveur. Dans le Targum et dans la tradition rabbinique (voir par exemple Tanhuma Toledot 6), ce verset recevra une interprétation messianique.

la reconstruction du temple selon la septante de zacharie 63 et l’#σχ'ς qui désignent ici en Za 4:6 la force des constructeurs s’opposent à la vigueur (Ex 15:6) que le Seigneur a déployée pour sauver son peuple de la force armée de Pharaon (Ex 15:4) au moment de l’Exode, tandis que le souﬄe fait écho au souﬄe de la toute puissance divine d’Ex 15:8, 10. Et on notera surtout la présence, en Ex 15:17, de l’expression ﬁgurée, très semblable à celle de Za 4:7, « la montagne de l’héritage », 7ρος κληρονομας, étroitement associée au motif de la demeure du Seigneur construite de ses mains. Présent à l’esprit du traducteur, lui-même tributaire, peut-être, d’une tradition juive mettant déjà en œuvre ce phénomène d’intertextualité, le texte de l’Exode a pu inﬂuencer l’exégèse de ce passage de Zacharie. Ainsi, compte tenu de la résonance de la terminologie de l’Exode, l’expression de Zacharie ne désignerait pas seulement l’héritier davidique mais le peuple tout entier promis à un nouvel héritage réitérant celui accordé après l’exode. Par l’introduction du mot « héritage » qui confond en quelque sorte le temps biblique et le temps historique, le grec substituerait à la pierre réelle de la reconstruction du Temple de l’hébreu une métaphore appliquée à tout le peuple. Ainsi, en grec, la promesse de l’oracle irait au-delà de la reconstruction proprement dite du Temple—celle-ci a déjà eu lieu, comme le dit explicitement le grec en 8:9, contrairement au TM—et porterait sur la restauration de la communauté appelée une nouvelle fois à prendre possession de la terre. Née d’une résonance intertextuelle, l’expression « la pierre de l’héritage » que Dieu suscitera à nouveau pourrait d’ailleurs être rapprochée de la formule « la verge de l’héritage » qui se trouve en Ps 73(74): 2 et désigne également le peuple, la communauté. De même en Jer 12:7, l’héritage que le Seigneur rejette, c’est la nation judéenne. Interprétées à la lumière de ces deux écarts—l’un en 8:9 qui fait de la reconstruction du Temple un événement passé, l’autre en 4:7 qui introduit la notion fondamentale d’héritage—, les allusions à la reconstruction du Temple dans la LXX de Zacharie ne sont peut-être pas des évocations d’une réalité historique concrète, passée ou à venir, mais plutôt des marques répétées d’une compréhension abstraite et spirituelle de la reconstruction du Temple, événement qui a certes bien et bel eu lieu mais reﬂète encore et avant tout pour les Juifs de l’époque des traducteurs, toujours en diaspora, l’espoir de restaurer la communauté50

50

Cf. P. Marinkovic, art. cit.

64

c. dogniez

aﬁn de recevoir la terre «en héritage, comme au commencement », selon les propres termes de Sir 36:1051. Cette conception symbolique du Temple, déjà à l’œuvre dans le judaïsme à l’époque hellénistique, sera du reste développée, par exemple à Qumran, puis dans le Nouveau Testament52. Au terme de cette recherche, nous sommes portés à conclure à la très grande ﬁdélité du traducteur lorsqu’il s’agit de dire en grec les oracles relatifs à la reconstruction du Temple dans les chapitres 1 à 8 de Zacharie qui, il est vrai, nous informent aussi peu que le TM sur cet événement majeur de l’histoire d’Israël. En revanche, les deux divergences que nous avons signalées, en 8:9 puis en 4:7, trop souvent perçues comme des méprises du traducteur, nous paraissent trahir le sens que le traducteur accorde à l’annonce de cet événement devenu métaphore de la reconstruction de la communauté désignée comme l’héritage du Dieu d’Israël.

51 Sur ce mode de lecture des prophéties à l’époque hellénistique, voir A. Van der Kooij, « The Septuagint of Zechariah as Witness to an Early Interpretation of the Book », in: C. Tuckett (ed.), The Book of Zechariah and its Inﬂuence (Ashgate, 2003), pp. 55– 56. 52 Sur la terminologie du temple et de la pierre appliquée à la communauté, voir par exemple L. Gaston, No Stone on Another. Studies in the Signiﬁcance of the Fall of Jerusalem in the Synoptic Gospels, NT Sup., (Leiden, 1970), et en particulier p. 164 à propos de 4Qﬂor I:1– 13 qui établit un lien très explicite entre la promesse de Natan de reconstruire le temple en 2 Sam 7:10s. et le passage d’Ex 15:17.

DIE TEXTGESCHICHTE DER KÖNIGSBÜCHER UND IHRE KONSEQUENZEN FÜR DIE TEXTGESCHICHTE DER HEBRÄISCHEN BIBEL, ILLUSTRIERT AM BEISPIEL VON 2 KÖN 23:1–3

Adrian Schenker 1. Vier Fassungen von 2 Kön 23:1–3 Der Bundesschluss Joschijas existiert in vier Formen: in 2Kön 23:1–3 MT, in 2Chr 34:29–32 MT und LXX, in 2Kön 23:1–3 (= 4Königreiche 23:1–3) in der LXX und in der Vetus latina (VL). Die VL ist als Übersetzung der LXX ein Zeuge derselben, und an dieser Stelle ein Textzeuge, dem kein griechischer Zeuge der LXX entspricht. Diese vier Fassungen unterscheiden sich in literarischen Eigentümlichkeiten voneinander, nicht nur in Diﬀerenzen der eigentlichen Textüberlieferung. Da es sich eindeutig um dieselbe Erzählung handelt, ist es angesichts der literarischen Unterschiede in den vier Textzeugen legitim, von vier Rezensionen oder Fassungen desselben Erzählstoﬀes zu sprechen. Es sind vier synoptische Versionen der gleichen Erzählung. Bei synoptischen Fassungen stellt sich notwendig die Frage ihres Verhältnisses zueinander. Welche Fassung ist älter, welche jünger? Lässt sich eine Genealogie der vier Fassungen erstellen? 2. Die vier Fassungen beruhen auf hebräischen Vorlagen Die vier Rezensionen beruhen alle auf hebräischen Texten, obschon zwei von ihnen, LXX und VL, nur in griechischer, bzw. lateinischer Übersetzung vorliegen. Die griechische Übersetzung der LXX ist in der Tat eine literalistische Wiedergabe, die ihr hebräisches Substrat durchschimmern lässt. Insbesondere ahmt sie die syntaktischen Verhältnisse ihrer hebräischen Basis genau nach.1 Unter der semantischen J. Barr, The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations, MSU XV, Nr. 11, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. I. Phil.-hist. Kl. (Göttin1

66

adrian schenker

Hinsicht gleicher griechischer Äquivalente für gleiche hebräische Wörter ist sie weniger regelmässig, obgleich sie auch hier oft Gleiches mit Gleichem übersetzt. Diese Übersetzungsweise erlaubt es, die hebräische Vorlage unter der griechischen Hülle ziemlich gut zu erkennen.2 Die VL pﬂegt einen noch extremeren literalistischen Übersetzungsstil. Daher lässt sie durch ihre lateinischen Formulierungen sowohl die darin vorausgesetzten griechischen als auch die dem Griechischen vorliegende hebräische Textgestalt durchscheinen.3 Anderseits zeigt die Übersetzung der LXX und VL dort, wo sie in der Textgestalt mit dem MT identisch ist, dass sie diesen ohne jede Veränderung wiedergibt. Sie erlaubt sich keine Abweichungen. Die sehr häuﬁg mögliche Rekonstitution einer hebräischen Vorlage hinter den griechischen und lateinischen Formulierungen der LXX und VL und die nachweisbare skrupulöse Treue gegenüber der hebräischen Vorlage, überall dort wo diese in langen Passagen mit dem MT identisch ist, machen es wahrscheinlich, dass die literarischen Diﬀerenzen zwischen MT, LXX und VL nicht auf das Konto der griechischen und lateinischen Übersetzer gehen, sondern auf jenes ihrer hebräischen Vorlagen. Fazit: die Rezensionen von 2Kön 23:1–3 bestanden in hebräischer Sprache, bevor die Übersetzungen der LXX und VL geschaﬀen wurden. gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), 275–325. Barr hat mehr die semantischen, aber weniger die syntaktischen Aspekte des Übersetzens dargestellt. 2 E. Tov, „The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Understanding of the LXX“ in: G.J. Brooke, B. Lindars, S.S.F., Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings. Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and Its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings (Manchester, 1990), SBL. SCS 33 (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1992), 11–47, hier 12–22, wieder abgedruckt in E. Tov, The Greek and Hebrew Bible. Collected Essays on the Septuagint, SVT 72 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 285–300, hier 285–291; E. Tov, The Text Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Simor, 1997), 57–104. 3 J. Trebolle Barrera, The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible. An Introduction to the History of the Bible (Leiden: Brill-Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997), 349–353, 357–358; N. Fernández Marcos, Scribes and Translators. Septuagint and Old Latin in the Books of Kings, SVT 54 (Leiden: Brill, 1994); B. Kedar, „The Latin Translations. Old Latin Versions“ in: M. Mulder (ed.) Mikra. Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum-Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 299–313, 335–338; F.E. Deist, Witnesses to the Old Testament, The Literature of the O.T. 5 (Pretoria: N.G. Kerkboekhandel, 1988), 184–185; B.J. Roberts, The O.T. Text and Versions. The Hebrew Text in Transmission and the History of the Ancient Versions (Cardiﬀ: University of Wales Press, 1951), 237–246; (O.F. Fritzsche-) Eb. Nestle, „Lateinische Bibelübersetzungen. Die lateinische Bibel vor Hieronymus“, Realencyclopädie für Theologie und Kirche, 3. Auﬂ., vol. 3 (Leipzig:

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

67

3. Die vier Rezensionen oder Fassungen bestanden zu Beginn unserer Zeitrechnung Der tiberiensische MT hatte einen Vorläufer, den protomasoretischen Konsonantentext, der vom 1. Jh. n.Chr. an bezeugt ist.4 Die Vorlage der LXX bestand im 2. Jh. v.Chr., da angenommen wird, die LXX der Königsbücher sei im 2. Jh. geschaﬀen worden.5 Wie es sich zeigen wird, kann die VL die älteste Form der LXX repräsentieren (siehe unten unter 4.1). Triﬀt das zu, dann lag ihre hebräische Textbasis ebenfalls schon im 2. Jh. v.Chr. vor, obwohl die Übersetzung der VL der Königsbücher wohl erst nach der Zeitenwende angefertigt wurde. Die ältesten Zitate stehen bei Cyprian (gest. 258). 1–2Chronik entstand im 3. Jh., und die LXX der Paralipomena wird von Eupolemos 157 v.Chr. gebraucht.6 Die Textformen von 2Kön 23:1–3 im MT, von 2Chr 34:29–32 und der ältesten LXX bestanden demgemäss alle zu Beginn unserer Zeitrechnung; die ältesten reichen in das 3. Jh. v.Chr. und vielleicht noch weiter hinauf. Die vier Fassungen können daher miteinander verglichen und auf ihr Verhältnis zueinander geprüft werden. Wenn eine Abhängigkeit zwischen ihnen entdeckt wird, ist der Nachweis erbracht, dass sie nicht nebeneinander existiert haben, sondern nacheinander. In diesem Fall stammt die eine Textgestalt von der andern ab. Hinrichs’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1897), 24–58, hier 26–35; vol. 23 (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1913), 210–212. 4 D. Barthélemy, „Histoire du texte hébraïque de l’Ancien Testament“, in: id., Etudes d’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament, OBO 21 (Fribourg: Ed. universitaires-Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht, 1978), 341–364, 396, hier 351–355; E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press-Assen: Royal von Gorcum, 2001), 29–33. 5 H.B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, revised by R.R. Ottley (Cambridge: University Press, 1914) = (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 24; G. Dorival, „L’achèvement de la Septante dans le judaïsme. De la faveur au rejet“, in: M. Harl, G. Dorival, O. Munnich, La Bible grecque des Septante. Du judaïsme hellénistique au christianisme ancien, Initiation au christianisme ancien (Paris: Ed. du Cerf-Ed. du C.N.R.S., 1988), 83–128, hier bes. 111. 6 G. Steins, „Die Bücher der Chronik“, E. Zenger u.a., Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 2. Auﬂ., Kohlhammer Studienbücher Theologie 1,1 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verl., 1995), 165–174, hier 172; Ph. Abadie, „1–2 Chroniques“, in: Th. Römer, J.-D. Macchi, Ch. Nihan (eds), Introduction à l’Ancien Testament, Le monde de la Bible 49 (Genève: Labor & Fides, 2004), 594–603, hier 598. Diese Einleitungen oszillieren in der Datierung der Chr-Bücher zwischen 350 und dem 2. Jh. v.Chr. Steins zweifelt an dem Zitat der Par durch Eupolemos.

68

adrian schenker 4. Das Verhältnis der vier Fassungen zueinander

4.1. Das Verhältnis zwischen MT und VL in 2 Kön 22:20–23:3 (und 2 Chr 34:29–32) Die VL ist aus einem langen Zitat Lucifers von Cagliari (gest. 370/1) bekannt, das er in seine Schrift De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus eingefügt hat. Diese Schrift gegen Kaiser Konstantius II. entstand zwischen 355 und 361. Der Grund, weshalb die VL vor der LXX mit dem MT verglichen werden soll, wird später deutlich werden. Der Vergleich wird nicht alle Diﬀerenzen in 2Kön 22:1–3 berücksichtigen. Zwischen den beiden Rezensionen gibt es mindestens zehn Textunterschiede. Überdies soll auch der letzte Vers von 2Kön 22 in die Untersuchung des Verhältnisses einbezogen werden, nämlich V. 20. Hier folgen jene fünf ausgewählten Textdiﬀerenzen, die das Verhältnis MT-VL am klarsten beleuchten. Für den Vergleich zwischen MT und VL ist an dieser Stelle zuerst festzustellen, dass die VL ohne Schwierigkeit ins Hebräische rückübersetzbar ist, obschon nicht alle semantischen Äquivalenzen zwischen den lateinischen und hebräischen Wörtern eindeutig bestimmbar sind. Die Satzstrukturen entsprechen dagegen eindeutig hebräischen Konstruktionen. Der folgende Vergleich bezieht sich somit auf den Konsonantentext des MT und auf die rekonstituierte hebräische Vorlage der VL. 1. Unterschied, 2Kön 22:20. Die zweite Vershälfte lautet im MT: „und deine Augen werden das ganze Übel nicht ansehen, das ich über diesen Ort bringe“, während sie nach VL das Gegenteil besagt: „und deine Augen werden alle Übel ansehen, die ich über diesen Ort und seine Bewohner bringe“. (Der lateinische Satz kann klar einer hebräischen Vorlage entsprechen. Nichts steht in der Tat einer solchen Entsprechung im Weg.) Hervorgehoben sei aus den drei Diﬀerenzen des Verses also nur die eine: die Negation fehlt. Der König wird das Unheil sehen. Dieser Unterschied gilt ebenfalls für 2Chr 34:28, wo in MT und LXX die Negation wie in 2Kön 22:20 steht. Für 2Chr 34:28 ist VL nicht erhalten. Das Fehlen der Negation kann weder in der VL noch in ihrer griechischen und letztlich hebräischen Vorlage als Schreibfehler (Haplographie) erklärt werden. 2. Unterschied, 2Kön 23:1. Während im MT der König die Ältesten von Juda und Jerusalem versammelt, V. 1, versammelt er in der VL die Ältesten Judas in Jerusalem. An der Versammlung wohnen dementsprechend keine Vertreter der Jerusalemer Behörden oder Notabeln bei,

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

69

obwohl der Versammlungsort Jerusalem ist. 2Chr 34:29 MT und LXX entspricht 2Kön 23:1 MT. 3. Unterschied, 2Kön 23:2. Nach V. 2 Anfang ziehen im MT „alle Männer Judas und alle Bewohner Jerusalems mit ihm“ hinauf, wohingegen nach der VL keine Bewohner Jerusalems hinaufgehen. Das stimmt sowohl im MT als auch in der VL mit der soeben erwähnten ersten Diﬀerenz in V. 1 überein: sowohl die Ältesten als auch die Bewohner Jerusalems nehmen teil nach dem MT, nur die Judäer nehmen teil nach der VL. Auch in 2Chr 34:30 MT und LXX ziehen „die Bewohner Jerusalems“ (ohne „alle“, ìë) mit hinauf.7 Daraus ergibt sich für den Ausdruck „das ganze Volk“ in V. 2 ein anderer Sinn im MT (wie auch in 2Chr MT und LXX) als in der VL: im MT ist das ganze Volk in der Tat aus den Judäern und Jerusalemern zusammengesetzt, während es in der VL nur aus den Judäern besteht. Nach dem MT schliessen demgemäss Judäer und Jerusalemer den Bund, aber nach der VL sind es nur die Judäer unter Abwesenheit der Jerusalemer. 4. Unterschied, 2Kön 23:3. Der König schliesst „den Bund vor JHWH“ nach dem MT, ebenso nach 2Chr 34:31 MT und LXX, wogegen er gemäss der VL „den Bund, der im Haus des Herrn gefunden worden ist, vor dem Herrn“ schliesst. Der „Bund“ selber, der geschlossen wurde, war im Tempel gefunden worden. Dieses Plus der VL kann nicht durch Homoioteleuton in der griechischen Vorlage ausgefallen sein, weil es dort ebenfalls vorhanden ist. Auf der Ebene der hebräischen Vorlage ist die Annahme eines Homoioteleuton ebenfalls unmöglich, weil der Artikel vor úéøá das Tetragrammaton als Genetivbestimmung von úéøá ausschliesst, und weil bei der Hypothese eines Ausfalls durch Homoioteleuton der präpositionale Ausdruck éðôì vor äåäé hätte mitausfallen müssen. Alles weist auf eine literarische Modiﬁkation; nichts empﬁehlt einen textlichen Unfall. 5. Unterschied, 2Kön 23:3 Ende. Im MT besteht der Vers aus drei Hauptsätzen. Der letzte (nach dem Atnach) lautet: „und das ganze Volk stand in dem Bund“. In der VL dagegen hängt zusätzlich ein Rela-

7 Dieses Satzglied kann weder in VL noch in den darunter liegenden griechischen und hebräischen Vorlagen durch Homoiarkton oder Homoioteleuton ausgefallen sein, weil in diesem Fall das erste mit „et omnes“, κα( π8ς, ìëå eingeleitete Satzglied: „alle Männer Judas…“ ausgefallen wäre, während das zweite „et omnes habitantes Jerusalem“, κα( π"ντες ο κατοικοντες, éáùéìëå erhalten geblieben wäre.

70

adrian schenker

tivsatz vom dritten Glied ab: „und das ganze Volk stand in dem Bund, den der König aus dem Buch schloss“. (Der zusätzliche Relativsatz kann in allen seinen Elementen einer hebräischen Vorlage entsprechen.) In 2Chr 34:32 MT und LXX ist, wie bekannt, das Verb ãîò als hiﬁl punktiert: „und er (nämlich der König) liess beitreten (dem Bund) jeden, der sich in Jerusalem befand, und Benjamin“. Dieses Plus der VL, das aus einem Relativsatz besteht: quod disposuit rex ex libro, kann auf einer hebräischen Vorlage basieren.8 Kein graphischer Unfall legt sich als Erklärung seines Fehlens im MT und in der LXX nahe. Daher erklärt sich dieser Textüberschuss in der VL oder sein Fehlen im MT und in der LXX nicht als graphischer Unfall und Irrtum, sondern als bewusste redaktionelle Massnahme im Dienste eines beabsichtigten Sinnes des erzählten Vorgangs. 4.3. Bestimmung des Verhältnisses zwischen MT und VL Sind dies fünf isolierte Varianten oder stehen sie in einem Zusammenhang? Die Diﬀerenzen 2 und 3 sowie die Textunterschiede 4 und 5 hängen miteinander zusammen. Methodisch lässt sich die Frage wie folgt entscheiden: Wenn sämtliche sekundären Lesarten immer in der gleichen Rezension vorkommen, und umgekehrt sämtliche ursprünglichen Lesarten in der andern Fassung stehen, dann ist diese als Bearbeitung des andern Texts zu betrachten, der dem Bearbeiter vorlag. Wenn sich sekundäre und ursprüngliche Lesarten dagegen abwechslungsweise auf beide Textformen verteilen, ist keine Bearbeitung einer Textform anzunehmen, sondern es handelt sich um voneinander unabhängige Eingriﬀe in beide Textfassungen, die nebeneinander herliefen. Das textkritische Urteil kann für Unterschied 1 in 2Kön 22:20 mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit gefällt werden. Die positive Formulierung der VL „deine Augen werden alle Übel sehen, die ich über Jerusalem bringen werde“ ist angesichts von Joschijas Schicksal ausserordentlich schwierig, aber nicht unmöglich. Das von der Prophetin Hulda im 8 Disponere entspricht úøë in der Wendung „einen Bund schliessen“, aufgrund des griechischen Ausdrucks: διατεσαι δια κην, vgl. V. 3 Anfang; ex libro gibt &κ το βιβλου, øôñä ïî wieder. Transire als Wiedergabe von ãîò ist freilich ungewöhnlich, denn transire entspricht normalerweise διρχεσαι, øáò, z. B. 2 Kön 2:14, A. Moreno Hernández, Les glosas marginales de Vetus Latina en las Biblias vulgatas españolas 1–2 Reyes, TECC 49 (Madrid: C.S.I.C., Inst. de ﬁlología, 1992), 123. Demgemäss enthielt die griechische Vorlage der VL in 2 Kön 23:3 διαπορε'εσαι oder διρχεσαι für hebräisches øáò.

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

71

Namen Gottes feierlich verkündete Strafgericht über Jerusalem hat der König (Joschija) nicht gesehen. Daher ist es sehr leicht vorstellbar, dass Kopisten oder Herausgeber die positive Form, wie sie in der Vorlage der VL bezeugt ist, in die negative Form des MT, von 2Chr 34:28 MT und LXX, sowie aller griechischen Zeugen der LXX in 2Kön 22:20 umwandelten, während das Gegenteil fast undenkbar ist.9 Die Unterschiede 2 und 3 in 2Kön 23:1, 2 betreﬀen die Anwesenheit der Bewohner Jerusalems beim Bundesschluss im MT und in 2Chr 34:29,30 MT und LXX gegenüber ihrem Fehlen in der VL. Dieses Fehlen ist natürlich auﬀällig. Nur die Judäer traten dem Bund bei, nicht aber die Jerusalemer. Die Erwähnung der Judäer allein unter Ausschluss der Jerusalemer ist eindeutig die schwierigere Form des Textes. Dies ergibt sich aus folgenden Gründen: auch die Parallele in 2Chr 34:29–30 sowie die LXX von 2Kön 23:1–2 nennen Judäer und Jerusalemer, sodass VL als isolierte, d.h. unassimilierte Form dasteht; ferner ist das Paar Judäer und Jerusalemer (in verschiedenen Formulierungen) sehr häuﬁg, besonders in Jeremia, 2Chronik und anderswo. Es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass ein Schreiber oder Herausgeber die Ältesten und Bewohner von Jerusalem aus dem Bundesschluss herausgenommen hat, aber es ist plausibel, dass sie eingefügt wurden, weil ihr Fehlen bei einem so wichtigen Vorgang begreiﬂicherweise störte. Der 4. und 5. Unterschied bezieht sich auf das Dokument, das im Tempel gefunden wurde. Der VL zufolge fand man den Bund, den der König schloss, im Tempel, V. 3 erste Hälfte, und der König schloss den Bund, dem das Volk beitrat, aus dem Buch, V. 3 Ende. Diese beiden präzisierenden Bestimmungen fehlen im MT, ebenso in 2Chr 34:31 MT und LXX. Das Buch heisst „Buch der Tora“ in 2Kön 22:11, was die VL als liber legis wiedergibt, dem τ2 βιβλον το νμου in der LXX zugrundeliegt. Dieses Buch enthält somit in der Formulierung der VL 9 Herr Prof. Dr. Siegfried Kreuzer, Wuppertal, stellte die berechtigte Frage, ob die fehlende Negation nicht auf das Konto von Lucifer von Cagliari zu buchen ist, nicht jedoch auf das der VL. In der Tat will Lucifer Kaiser Konstantius II. mit seinen Zitaten der Königsbücher das Strafgericht an die Wand malen, das ihn wie die bösen Könige Israels und Judas wegen seiner Verruchtheit ereilen wird. Zu diesem Zwecke würde sich in 2 Kön 22:20 eine Fassung ohne Verneinung besser eignen. Dennoch bleibt es m. E. wahrscheinlich, dass die Negation schon in VL fehlte. Hätte sich nämlich Lucifer, um seiner Polemik willen hinreissen lassen, in den Bibeltext verändernd einzugreifen, würde er seinem Argument den Zahn ausgezogen haben. Jeder Gegner würde ihm ja entgegenhalten, dass seine Drohungen gar nicht in der H. Schrift stehen und daher Erﬁndungen Lucifers, aber nicht Wort Gottes sind.

72

adrian schenker

zwei Dinge: die Tora und den Bund, wogegen es nach dem MT in V. 2 zwar „Buch des Bundes“ heisst, wie auch in 2Chr 34:30 MT und LXX, aber den Bund schloss der König nicht „aus dem Buch“, wie auch der Bund nicht „im Tempel gefunden wurde“. Das „Buch des Bundes“ spielt im MT die gleiche Rolle wie das „Buch des Bundes“ in Ex 24:7. Der Ausruck úéøáä øôñ ist derselbe. Hier wie dort lasen Mose und der König dieses Buch „in die Ohren des Volkes“ vor, Ex 24:7; 2Kön 23:2; 2Chr 34:30 MT und LXX. Die Vorlesung ging dem eigentlichen Bundesschluss voraus. Für die Bundesschliessung wurde das Buch nicht mehr gebraucht. In diesem Punkt decken sich Ex 24:7–8 und 2Kön 23:2–3; 2Chr 34:30. Nicht so in der VL! Bei ihr brauchte man das Buch sowohl zur vorgängigen Vorlesung, V. 2, als auch zur nachfolgenden Schliessung des Bundes, V. 3 Ende. Daher konnte die in der VL enthaltene Textfassung folgerichtig feststellen, dass nicht etwa nur das Bundesbuch, sondern speziﬁsch der „Bund“ oder der „Bundesschluss“, d.h. die Zeremonie oder die Art und Weise des Bundesschlusses in dem Dokument im Tempel gefunden worden war. Der VL zufolge enthielt das Schriftstück demgemäss „die Tora“ und die Vorschriften für die Bundesschliessung. Es war somit eine auch formell neue Bundesschliessung, nicht nur eine Wiederaufnahme der früheren, überlieferten Bundesschliessungszeremonie. Nach alledem trat dieser Bundesschluss in der VL als ein zweiter, neuer und paralleler Bundesschluss neben den Bund Moses am Sinai. Deshalb schloss der König ja auch den Bund, weil das aufgefundene Buch die Anweisung zu einem neuen Bundesschluss enthielt. Die Formulierung der VL erklärt, warum der König überhaupt einen Bund schloss: das gefundene Buch schrieb den Bundesschluss vor! Diese Darstellung der VL unterscheidet sich nun aber von 2Kön 23:1–3 MT und von 2Chr 34:29–32 MT und LXX. Hier enthielt das aufgefundene Buch keine Anordnung, einen Bund zu schliessen. Der Bundesschluss entsprang der Initiative des Königs Joschija. Ferner wurde der Bund gemäss der Fassung der VL nicht in der Form der Bundesschlüsse von früher, sondern nach der neuen, bisher nicht praktizierten Anweisung des gefundenen Buches geschlossen. Es war somit auch in der Form ein anderer Bund als frühere Bundesschlüsse. Daher ist der MT eher als sekundär zu betrachten, weil er einerseits mit 2Chr parallel läuft, und anderseits eine Neuauﬂage vorhergehender Bundesschlüsse nahelegt. Der Fassung der VL zufolge, die auf einer hebräischen Vorlage basiert, enthielt das aufgefundene Buch eine Tora und dazu die Anwei-

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

73

sung zu einem neuen Bundesschluss. Damit scheint das Buch in gleichem Rang wie das Bundesbuch vom Sinai in Ex 24 zu stehen, weil es Tora und Bundesschliessung enthält und vorschreibt. Im MT wird das entdeckte Buch als Bund mit Gott beschworen, aber es selbst enthält keine ausdrückliche Anweisung zu einer neuen, bisher noch nie praktizierten Bundesschliessung. Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten, dass alle fünf als sekundär erwiesenen Lesarten zum protomasoretischen Text gehören, während die VL eine härtere und daher wohl ursprünglichere Form des Textes bewahrt hat. 4.3. Das Verhältnis der LXX zu VL Die Zeugen der ältesten Form der LXX in der Sektion 1 Kön 22–2Kön 25 (Sektion γδ) sind die antiochenischen oder lukianischen Handschriften.10 Sie sind hier dem protomasoretischen Text weniger angeglichen worden als andere Textzeugen der LXX. Im Vergleich mit der VL stellt sich aber heraus, dass diese antiochenischen Zeugen an den fünf untersuchten Stellen sich näher an den MT und damit an den protomasoretischen Text halten als die VL. Methodisch ist es aber geboten, die mit MT übereinstimmenden Textformen im Vergleich mit vom MT abweichenden als sekundär zu betrachten,11 bis der Nachweis erbracht ist, dass die vom MT entfernten Textformen verderbt oder literarisch verändert wurden, sodass sie nicht als ursprünglich gelten können.12 Was den ersten Unterschied anlangt, 2Kön 22:20, so stimmen alle Zeugen der LXX mit dem MT hinsichtlich der Negation, die allein in VL fehlt, überein: „deine Augen werden alle Übel … nicht sehen“. Das ist eine sekundäre Lesart, wie deutlich wurde. Dieselbe Feststellung gilt für die Ältesten und die Bewohner Jerusalems, die am Bund teilnahmen, 2Kön 23:1–2. Alle Zeugen der LXX entsprechen unter dieser 10 (B. Botte-) P.-M. Bogaert, „Septante et versions grecques“, DBS 12, Fasc. 68 (Paris: Letouzey & Ané, 1993), 536–691, hier 599–601. 11 P. de Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen Übersetzung der Proverbien (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1863), 1–3. 12 A. Schenker, Älteste Textgeschichte der Königsbücher. Die hebräische Vorlage der ursprünglichen Septuaginta als älteste Textform der Königsbücher, OBO 199 (Fribourg: Academic Press-Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), bes. S. 2–11. N. Fernández Marcos, Scribes and Translators. Septuagint and Old Latin in the Books of Kings, SVT 54 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), bes. S. 82–87, steht der getreuen Wiedergabe der ursprünglichen griechischen und hebräischen Vorlage durch VL mit grösserer Skepsis gegenüber als es hier geschieht.

74

adrian schenker

Hinsicht dem MT in 2Kön und 2Chr. Nur die Minuskel j = Rahlfs 243 entspricht in V. 1 Ende der VL! Auch hinsichtlich der 5. Diﬀerenz, V. 3 Ende, decken sich MT und alle Zeugen der LXX. Nicht jedoch in der 4. Diﬀerenz, V. 3 Anfang. Hier bieten die antiochenischen Zeugen boc2 e2 die gleiche Lesart wie VL: „und er schloss den Bund, der im Hause des Herrn gefunden worden war, vor dem Herrn“. Der Relativsatz fehlt im MT und allen andern Zeugen der LXX.13 Nun ist die VL unter allen Textzeugen der LXX der vom MT am weitesten entfernte. Ihre Textform erklärt sich weder als Modiﬁkation des lateinischen und des zugrundeliegenden griechischen Übersetzers noch als textliche Verderbnis noch als redaktionelle Veränderung der Form von MT. Es ist daher anzunehmen, dass VL in diesem Stück unter allen Zeugen der LXX deren ursprünglichste Form bewahrt hat. Es gab demgemäss zwei hebräische Rezensionen oder literarische Fassungen der Erzählung von Joschijas Bundesschluss: eine ursprünglichere, indirekt in Übersetzung erhaltene in der VL, nämlich die hebräische Vorlage der ursprünglichen LXX, und eine jüngere, nämlich der protomasoretische Text, der später alle bekannten griechischen Zeugen der LXX beeinﬂussen sollte, indem er sie sich näher angeglichen hat. 5. Natur und Ursprung des prae- und protomasoretischen Textes: eine neue Edition Die hier vorgelegte Analyse von 2Kön 22:20–23:3 zeigt demzufolge, dass der praemasoretische Text dieses Abschnittes eine Neubearbeitung der hebräischen Vorlage der ursprünglichen LXX ist, die hier in der VL am treuesten erhalten geblieben ist. Unter praemasoretisch verstehe ich den Vorläufertext des protomasoretischen Textes, der im 1. Jh. n.Chr. in den Fundorten am Toten Meer, besonders ausserhalb von Qumran bezeugt ist.14 Dieser Vorläufer des protomasoretischen Textes bestand im Lichte dieses Abschnittes von 2Kön 22:20–23:3 nicht als ein anderer Texttyp, der neben der hebräischen Vorlage der ursprünglichen LXX herlief. Er stammt vielmehr von dieser hebräischen Vorlage der LXX ab, da er eine Redaktion oder korrigierte Neuausgabe derselben 13

A.E. Brooke, N. McLean, H.St.J. Thackeray, The Old Testament in Greek II,2, (Cambridge: University Press, 1930), ad loc. 14 Barthélemy, „Histoire du texte“ (Anm. 4); E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press-Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001), 28–33.

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

75

darstellt. Es liegen daher nicht zwei Texttypen vor, sondern zwei Editionen desselben Textes, eine Erstausgabe, repräsentiert durch die ursprüngliche LXX, nur noch z.T. auf griechisch und v.a. in lateinischer Übersetzung in VL erhalten, und eine korrigierte, veränderte Zweitausgabe, die der prae- und protomasoretische Text ist, aus dem schliesslich der MT herauswachsen sollte. Selbstverständlich extrapolieren diese Folgerungen die in 2Kön 23:1– 3 gewonnenen Ergebnisse und weiten sie auf die Gesamtheit des Textes der Bücher 1–2Könige aus. Doch bestätigen zahlreiche weitere Analysen der Königsbücher das Bild des Verhältnisses zwischen der hebräischen Vorlage der ursprünglichen LXX und dem praemasoretischen und masoretischen Text.15 Die beiden Textfassungen verhalten sich zueinander wie eine Erstausgabe und eine darauf folgende bearbeitete Zweitausgabe, die es dementsprechend erst nach der Erstausgabe geben konnte. 6. Sind die zwei Fassungen der VL und des MT das Werk von Schreibern oder von Herausgebern? Die hebräische Vorlage der VL entspricht einem ursprünglicheren hebräischen Text, während der Vorläufer des MT diesen älteren Text in einer späteren Phase bearbeitet, d. h. literarisch verändert hat, indem er an den fünf Teststellen von 2Kön 22:20–23:3 die Ereignisse anders erzählte. Wer hat diese neue literarische Fassung der Erzählung geschaﬀen? War es ein Schreiber, der sich als privater Kopist die Freiheit nahm, den Text seinen Ansprüchen anzupassen? Oder war es ein bevollmächtigter Herausgeber, der die Königsbücher in einer neuen, veränderten Edition herausgeben wollte? Unter „Schreiber“ verstehe ich hier einen individuellen Kopisten, der in seinem persönlichen Namen seine Vorlage verändert hätte, unter Herausgeber eine oﬃzielle Instanz, die eine Schrift publiziert, weil das Veröﬀentlichungsrecht dieser Schrift bei ihr liegt. Folgende Gründe weisen auf eine oﬃzielle Edition und Veröﬀentlichung hin. Die griechischen Übersetzer der Königsbücher allgemein und des Abschnitts 2Kön 22:20–23:3 im besonderen—und in ihrem Gefolge die lateinischen der VL—übertragen in einer sehr wörtlichen A. Schenker, Septante et texte massorétique dans l’histoire la plus ancienne du texte de 1 Rois 2–14, CRB 48 (Paris: Gabalda, 2000); Schenker, Älteste Textgeschichte (Anm. 12). 15

76

adrian schenker

Weise. Das tun sie, weil für sie oﬀenbar der ursprüngliche hebräische Text bis in seine sprachlichen Strukturen hinein auch in der griechischen Zielsprache erhalten bleiben und durchscheinen muss. Darin ist hoher Respekt vor dem Wortlaut des Textes in all seinen linguistischen Einzelheiten impliziert. Wenn Übersetzer nun den Text in solcher Weise als unantastbar betrachten, dass sie die griechische Zielsprache an die hebräische Ausgangssprache anpassten, soweit es überhaupt nur ging, darf man annehmen, dass die Schreiber des Textes ebenfalls dasselbe respektvolle Verhältnis zu ihm hatten, das ihnen Eingriﬀe in die überlieferte Textgestalt verbot. Die Rezension der LXX, die eine grössere Anpassung der griechischen Übersetzung an das hebräische Modell anstrebt, eine Tendenz, die im Dodekapropheton aus dem Nahal Hever schon früh bezeugt wird (die Handschrift wird in eine Zeitspanne zwischen 1. Jh. v. und 1. Jh. n.Chr. datiert),16 zeigt ihrerseits den grossen Respekt, mit dem der hebräische Wortlaut gehütet wird. Er ist in seinen linguistischen Bestandteilen Norm für den Übersetzer. Ein weiterer Grund, einen Herausgeber und nicht einen Kopisten als Urheber der inhaltlichen Modiﬁkationen in 1–2Könige vorauszusetzen, besteht in der grossen Zahl und in der Beschaﬀenheit dieser Veränderungen. Ein Kopist will und muss auftragsgemäss eine Vorlage abschreiben. Dabei korrigiert und modernisiert er, was ihm in seiner Vorlage fehlerhaft oder antiquiert vorkommt. Aber er wird den Text seiner Vorlage nicht inhaltlich umgestalten, sodass der neue kopierte Text etwas anderes sagt als die Vorlage. In unserem Beispiel 2Kön 22:20–23:3 sind die Negation in V. 20: „und deine Augen werden alle Übel nicht ansehen, die ich über diesen Ort bringe“, die Anwesenheit der Ältesten und Bewohner Jerusalems in V. 1–2 und der Bundesschluss in V. 3, für dessen Vollzug das aufgefundene Buch nicht benötigt wird, drei Unterschiede, die Sinn und Ablauf der Ereignisse tief verändern. Das ist mehr als Modernisierung und punktuelle Korrektur einer Vorlage. Die Häuﬁgkeit und die tief in den Inhalt eingreifende und verändernde Natur der Änderungen lassen nicht an einen Schreiber oder Korrektoren (Diortotheten) als Urheber denken, sondern an eine Instanz, die bevollmächtigt ist, die literarische Substanz des Textes umzugestalten. Eine solche Instanz nennen wir Herausgeber.

16

E. Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nah. al Hever (8 Hev XIIgr) (The Seyâl Coll. I), DJD 8, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 22–26.

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

77

Daher ist die Annahme nicht wahrscheinlich, dass die beobachteten, keineswegs geringfügigen, sondern substantiellen Veränderungen in 2Kön 22:20–23:3 auf das Konto eines Schreibers zu buchen sind. Solche starken sinnverändernden Eingriﬀe in einen Text, der den Übersetzern ja gleichzeitig als bis in die Einzelheiten minuziös zu bewahrendes Vorbild galt, konnte nur jemand veranlassen, dem Autorität über diese Schrift zukam, und der über Form, Inhalt und Verbreitung entscheiden durfte. Damit rückt die im protomasoretischen Text bewahrte Neuausgabe der Königsbücher in die Nähe der Tiqqune soferim. Es handelt sich um eine Neubearbeitung, d. h. um die Korrektur einer Schrift, die als theologisch massgebend betrachtet wurde und gerade deshalb korrigiert werden musste. Solche „ideologischen“ oder theologischen Anpassungen des überkommenen Textes an eine neue Konzeption waren wahrscheinlich nicht privater, sondern öﬀentlicher Natur, weil nur eine bevollmächtigte Instanz eine für weitere Überlieferung und Verbreitung bestimmte Schrift in einzelnen Punkten verändern durfte. Zusammengefasst ist es wahrscheinlicher, dass eine oﬃzielle Instanz eine neue Rezension von 2Kön 22:20–23:3 schuf, als dass sie auf die Initiative von Schreibern zurückzuführen wäre. 7. Wer veranlasste die neue Fassung von 1–2 Könige, und wann entstand sie? Damit ist die Frage gestellt, wer die Fassung oder Rezension veranlasst hat, die der praemasoretische Text ist. Beim Fehlen aller Hinweise in den biblischen Texten und in den geschichtlichen Quellen auf eine Neuausgabe der Königsbücher bleibt nur eine Vermutung zur Beantwortung dieser Frage übrig. Es liegt nahe, an priesterliche Kreise am Jerusalemer Tempel zu denken, die für diese Neuausgabe verantwortlich waren. Dafür spricht die priesterfreundliche Tendenz der Neuausgabe sowie auch die harte Ablehnung des samaritanischen Heiligtums auf dem Garizim.17 Die Polemik gegen diesen Tempel ist in der praemasoretischen Form des Textes und damit auch in ihrer masoretischen Form deutlich heftiger als in der Erstausgabe. Ferner würde die jerusalemische Priesterschaft die Vollmacht erklären, die in einer Neuausgabe

17

Schenker, Septante et texte massorétqiue (Anm. 15), 100–108, 115–120.

78

adrian schenker

impliziert ist, da sie die alte Vorgängerausgabe ausser Kurs setzt. Eine neue Ausgabe hat einen oﬃziellen Charakter, weil sie ein Copyright voraussetzt und die alte Ausgabe ersetzt. Diese Beobachtung ist zugleich ein chronologisches Indiz, denn der Bruch zwischen Jerusalem und dem Garizim, zwischen Juda und Samarien scheint in der frühhasmonäischen Zeit unter Johannes Hyrkan um 129/128 v.Chr. vollzogen worden zu sein.18 Eine solche Datierung passt vorzüglich zur Tatsache, dass die ursprüngliche LXX den Text der Erstausgabe bewahrt hat. Denn zur Zeit dieser Übersetzung gab es die praemasoretische Neuausgabe vielleicht noch gar nicht. 8. Folgerungen für die Textgeschichte Die Königsbücher präsentieren nicht allein die Situation von zwei literarisch verschiedenen Textrezensionen. Jeremia, Ezechiel, Daniel, Esra-Nehemia, 1–2Samuel, aber auch Teile des Pentateuchs bieten solche Doppelrezensionen, bei denen die hebräische Vorlage der LXX (erhalten bisweilen nur in der VL)19 die andere Rezension oder Fassung widerspiegelt, auf der jene des MT fusst. Die Frage ist damit gestellt, ob es sich nicht um eine einzige, grosse Rezension oder Neuausgabe handelt, die grosse Teile der hebräischen Bibel umfasst hat. Sie hätte mehr oder weniger tief in die überlieferten biblischen Texte eingegriﬀen, um sie in einer neuen Ausgabe herauszugeben. Zu dieser Neuausgabe scheinen die echten Tiqqune sopherim zu gehören, und es ist nicht ausgeschlossen, dass auch andere als die genannten biblischen Bücher von ihr erfasst worden sind. Die Schaﬀung einer neuen Ausgabe, welche die alte, vorausgegangene Edition ersetzen sollte, würde ja auch das Phänomen der Rezensionen der griechischen Übersetzung gut erklären. Eine solche Rezension ist ja nichts anderes 18 St. Schorch, Die Vokale des Gesetzes. Die samaritanische Lesetradition als Textzeugin der Tora. 1. Das Buch Genesis, BZAW 339 (Berlin-New York: W. de Gruyter, 2004), 14–18; J.D. Purvis, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), 104–118. 19 P.-M. Bogaert, „L’importance de la Septante et du «Monacensis» de la Vetus Latina pour l’exégèse du livre de l’Exode (ch pp. 35–40)“, in: M. Vervenne, (ed.), Studies in the Book of Exodus. Redaction-Reception-Interpretation, BETL 126 (Leuven: University Press, 1996), 399–428; id., „La libération de Jérémie et le meurtre de Godolias: le texte court (LXX) et la rédaction longue (TM)“, in: D. Frankel, U. Quast, J.W. Wevers, (Hrsg.), Studien zur Septuaginta—Robert Hanhart zu Ehren, MSU 20 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 312–322.

die textgeschichte der königsbücher

79

als eine neue, korrigierte Edition. Nachdem die neue Ausgabe alleinige Gültigkeit erlangt hat, ist der nächste Schritt in der griechischsprachigen Leserschaft der Bibel der, ihre Übersetzungen der neuen Ausgabe anzupassen, d.h. eine Rezension des griechischen Textes nach dem Modell des von nun an gültigen hebräischen Textes durchzuführen. Aus diesem Grund ist für das Zwölfprophetenbuch, das spätestens im 1. Jh. n.Chr. in seiner griechischen Fassung rezensiert wurde, gerade wegen dieser Rezension der griechischen Übersetzung auch eine hebräische Neuausgabe zu postulieren, die nicht lange vor dem 1. Jh. oﬃziell erschienen sein muss.20 Weiter ist die Annahme von zwei sukzessiven Editionen für die Textkritik von grosser Tragweite, weil diese dann vor allem zwischen den beiden Editionen unterscheiden muss statt sie zu vermischen. Zusammenfassend liesse sich feststellen, dass die Tatsache einer neuen Ausgabe der Königsbücher, die im MT bis heute erhalten ist, während die ursprüngliche LXX, teilweise nur noch in der VL bewahrt, die frühere Edition widerspiegelt, die Frage aufwirft, ob der Ursprung der masoretischen Textrezension (in prae- und protomasoretischer Form) in einer neuen Edition der heiligen Schriften im 2. Jh. zu suchen ist.

20 D. Barthélemy, „Redécouverte d’un chaînon manquant de l’histoire de la Septante“, RB 60 (1953), 18–29 = id., Etudes d’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament (Anm. 4), 38–50; id., Les devanciers d’Aquila, SVT 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1963).

BEERSHEBA VALLEY ARCHAEOLOGY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BIBLICAL RECORD

Zeev Herzog The traditional biblical archaeology paradigm consists of a blend of three disciplines—biblical, historical and archaeological—with archaeology serving as a secondary discipline included mainly to provide biblical scholars with supportive historical evidence for their theories. The fusion of these disciplines, which once seemed beneﬁcial to all three, now reveals itself as a biased method of research. Over the past two decades, Near Eastern archaeology has been undergoing a paradigmatic shift, coming into its own as an independent discipline that provides essential data on the ancient cultures of the Levant. This new paradigm may be termed “social archaeology” (see below). The rich evidence exposed by archaeological research could not have been envisioned by the biblical or extra-biblical sources. The Beersheba Valley is a superb case study of archaeology’s indispensable contribution to social archaeology. The late Yohanan Aharoni initiated research of the region forty years ago, and directed the excavation projects at Tel Arad and Tel Beersheba. This eﬀort was carried on by his colleagues and students at Tel Esdar, Tel Malhata, Tel Masos, Tel Aroer, Tel #Ira, Hurvat #Uza, and Qitmit. Regrettably, many of these excavations were not fully published and their preliminary reports were subjected to contrasting interpretations. The current discussion is an attempt to remedy this mischief by re-analyzing and re-assessing the excavation projects at Arad and Tel Beersheba. After more than 30 years of neglect, my research partner Lily Singer-Avitz and I are assuming responsibility for the processing and full publication of the material. The results of this re-analysis and re-assessment are the backbone of the current presentation. The complete data will be published in several volumes; here I present the essence of the archaeological material that oﬀers fresh insight on biblical issues.

82

zeev herzog Scientiﬁc Revolution in Archaeology

Traditional interpretation of the archaeological data was strongly affected by the biblical paradigm. For decades a central concern of the biblical archaeology paradigm was to create a picture of the past that brought literary sources into harmony with archaeological discovery (Albright 1963; Wright 1962). Paradoxically, many archaeological discoveries contradicted the biblical narrative and chronology and began to undermine the historical credibility of the biblical account (Dever 1993; Long 1997). Accumulating anomalies and contradicting data eventually triggered the scientiﬁc revolution, in Thomas Kuhn’s terms (Kuhn 1970). The new paradigm calls for the re-evaluation of the shared role of the two disciplines and the focusing of research on analysis of social and economic factors while unveiling the historical reality (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001; Herzog 2001). Even so, some scholars continue to claim that the old paradigm still aﬀects the most critical discussions (Skjeggestad 2001). From the very ﬁrst glance, there are clear contradictions between the biblical and archaeological data related to the Beersheba Valley. While events described in the Old Testament are connected with the pre-monarchical period, most of the archaeological remains date to the days of the Kingdom of Judah. Nevertheless, in keeping with the customary biblical-archaeology paradigm, numerous attempts were made by scholars to synchronize the two sources. These eﬀorts resulted in what today looks like a desperate attempt to harmonize contradictory evidence. The following is an interpretation of data that radically diverges from traditional views (including my own previous interpretations). It expresses my claim that a more accurate and unbiased observation of the archaeological record is possible only with a paradigmatic shift from “biblical” to “social” archaeology. I consider the shift in my own understanding of the data in the past decade, as well as that of many of my colleagues, as an expression of the scientiﬁc revolution. I am proud to present this untangling from my older published views as a fearless manifestation of my partaking in the shaping of the archaeology of the twenty-ﬁrst century in Israel.

beersheba valley archaeology

83

Ecological Considerations Environmental argumentation was strongly rejected by prominent “biblical archaeology” scholars such as Albright, who preferred ideological causes for social change (Albright 1960: 250). The renewed appreciation of the ecological factor in shaping social change was generated through the introduction of Braudel’s innovative study of the Mediterranean world (Braudel 1972). The reciprocal relations between the changing social structure and the ever-changing environment became a focus of the new trends in modern archaeology (Butzer 1982; Dincauze 2000). The geographical locations of the Beersheba Valley, in a semi-arid zone in southern Judah, make this region a natural laboratory for in-depth study of social change. The area contains extensive arable loess soils, perfectly suitable for dry-farming agriculture. However, this advantage is considerably restricted by a low annual precipitation, irregular periods of rain and high evaporation rates (Baly 1957). The very marginality of the region beﬁts its role as a focal point for unveiling socio-economic processes. These conditions resulted in long periods during which there was an absence of permanent settlements, with only pastoral nomads roaming through the region. Permanent, enduring settlements in the region existed in short spurts, and were the exception rather than the rule. The very presence of sedentary communities in this ecological zone could have been possible only due to temporary climatic ﬂuctuations. Data collected by a variety of independent sources has recently brought about considerable progress in the study of ancient climates. Data on climatic change is currently being collected from stalactites in the Sorek Cave (Bar-Matthews et al. 1999), in the caves along the Dead Sea (Frumkin and Elitzur 2002) and in cores dug out of the bottom of the Mediterranean (Schilman et al. 2001). The sources unanimously point to environmental ﬂuctuations in historic periods, but the exact dates of these cycles have not as yet been determined. More direct data from the Beersheba Valley is presented by animal bones and pollen (Herzog 1994). A modest change in precipitation and temperature could have increased the yields from nil to signiﬁcant numbers. The archaeological record strongly supports the involvement of ecological factors in encouraging and discouraging sedentary occupation in the valley. I believe that the study of the rise of settlement in the Beersheba Valley in the Iron Age I and the changes that resulted throughout the period should consider the climatic ﬂuctuations as a main trigger

84

zeev herzog

for social and political shifts. Another natural cause for a major change in the socio-economic structure of the region is the eﬀect of a grand-scale earthquake. Such an event is recorded in the biblical writings of Amos and Zechariah (Dever 1992; Austin, Franz, and Frost 2000). I maintain that the total destruction of Beersheba IV city and the transition from Iron Age IIA to Iron Age IIB were triggered mainly by such an ecological event.

The Patriarchal Stories There was no occupation in the Beersheba valley during the Middle Bronze Age II, the period traditionally attributed to the Patriarchs. The biblical stories related to Beersheba and the Patriarchs thus formed a thorn in the side of scholars. It was even suggested that due to this discrepancy Tel Beersheba might not be the site of biblical Beersheba (Fowler 1982). In the early sixties, W.F. Albright still advocated an even earlier reality for the patriarchal “donkey caravans” in the Middle Bronze I period (Albright 1961). However, as early as 1967 Benjamin Mazar published his critical view of the historical background of the Book of Genesis and advocated a date in the 11th–10th centuries BCE for the patriarchal stories (Mazar 1969). Other scholars have denied any historical reality for the patriarchal episodes and claimed the Postexilic period for their composition (Thompson 1974, van Seters 1975). On the basis of the ﬁndings at Tel Beersheba and Arad I fully subscribe to Benjamin Mazar’s view, in looking for the sitz im Leben of the patriarchal stories connected with Beersheba in the Iron Age, in the earliest occupation at Tel Beersheba (Herzog 1980; Herzog 1984). Nevertheless, the traditional view was still maintained by a distinguished scholar like Amihai Mazar in 1990, who continues to endorse dating the archaeological background of the patriarchal narratives to the Middle Bronze II (Mazar 1990: 224–226). Aharoni’s identiﬁcation of a citadel at Tel Beersheba with p.h. qr "ibrm (Nos. 71–73) on the Sheshonq I list (Aharoni 1973a:113) seems unsound if the site bore the name Beersheba. However, the interpretation of the term h. qr as a settlement surrounded by a girdle (Mazar 1957) may well ﬁt one of the “enclosed” settlements in the “wilderness of Beersheba” (Herzog 1983). Moreover, a 70-meter-deep well exposed on the eastern slope of the mound is assumed to have been in use from the very beginning of occupation in the Iron Age (Herzog 1984: 4–6). This may

beersheba valley archaeology

85

well provide a factual background for the patriarchal stories about the struggle over a well at Beersheba (Gen. 21:22–34, 26:15–33). Regrettably, such early use could not be veriﬁed in the renewed excavation of the well, since it was continuously utilized until its destruction in the Hellenistic period.

The Beersheba Valley and the “Conquest” Tradition The biblical tradition of the conquest of Canaan faces similar inconsistencies. The common scholarly opinion explains the failure of the Israelites to enter the land directly from the south as a result of “the chain of fortiﬁed Canaanite cities in the northern Negev [that] forced the Israelites to turn eastward to Transjordan ﬁrst” (Aharoni 1967). Explorations throughout the Beersheba Valley at sites like Tel Arad, Tel Malhata and Tel Masos were initiated mainly in order to expose the assumed Canaanite cities of Arad and Hormah. The excavations disproved this claim, since absolutely no Late Bronze Age remains were found at any of these sites. As a result, Aharoni was forced to conclude that the tradition “is not well founded historically” (Aharoni 1979). Refutation of the historicity of the conquest story provides us with the obliteration of an additional link in the refuted chain of events oﬀered by biblical historiography. The story of the military conquest of Canaan is bluntly refuted by the archaeology of the Beersheba Valley. The occupation in the Beersheba Valley started during the Iron Age I (late 12th and 11th centuries BCE) after a gap of half a millennium. Occupation in Iron Age I and the “Israelite Settlement” Following a gap in the occupation of the Beersheba Valley during the whole of the Late Bronze Age, several small settlements emerged in the Iron Age I. The earliest layers uncovered at Tel Masos IIIB and Tel Beersheba IX contain mainly pits that served for storage. Gradually houses were added in Tel Masos IIIA and Tel Beersheba VIII, exhibiting the ﬁrst appearance of a four-room house type, mainly known in the hill-country (Finkelstein 1988). The artifacts exposed in these layers include objects of variegated origin like Midianite painted ware, a Canaanite ivory lion head, as well as some coastal Philistine sherds. A late 12th to early 11th century date for these strata seems appropriate.

86

zeev herzog

The renewed occupation of the Beersheba Valley by farming communities would have been possible only if climatic conditions improved. Indeed, the granaries as well as the numerous cattle bones found at these sites provide the archaeological basis for the sudden appearance of sedentary settlements in this marginal region. The occupants must have enjoyed increased yields of cereals, with harvests sizeable enough to oblige them to dig storage facilities for excess grain. This improved environmental setting was apparently suﬃciently long-term so that cattle were employed for plowing larger ﬁeld-plots and for the transportation of harvested products. The vast occupation in the Beersheba Valley in Iron Age I, far from the kernel “settlement” areas in the central hill-country, is quite surprising. Who were these people? The ﬁrst and foremost inclination was to identify them with the “Israelites.” Aharoni thought they provided clear evidence of the reliability of Alt and Noth’s “peaceful inﬁltration” model for Israelite settlement in Canaan (Aharoni 1976). Fritz noticed the occurrence at Tel Masos of cultural traits common in the hill country and presumed that the occupants underwent a phase of symbiosis with the local population before entering the southern territory (Fritz 1981). Finkelstein (1988) explained the occupation in the Beersheba Valley as a late stage in the settlement process, expanding from the hill country. Other scholars attempted to associate the settlers with diﬀerent ethnic groups known from the biblical account. Following the exposure of the sanctuary at Arad, Benjamin Mazar (1965) related its presence to the Kenites, basing his theory on the biblical passages connecting the Negev of Arad with the sons of Hobab the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law (Judges 1:15–17). Kochavi associated the unique nature of the large settlement at Tel Masos with the Amalekite town “Ir Amalek” mentioned in 1 Sam. 15:5 (Kochavi 1979). In line with this reasoning my own initial interpretation proposed a distinction between the Israelites at Tel Beersheba, the Kenites at Tel Arad and the Amalekites at Tel Masos (Herzog 1984: 72–74). However, recognition of the critical views of social archaeology led me to re-evaluate the entire perception of ethnic identity. In 1990 I suggested a shift in these views (Herzog 1990; 1994). I claimed that the variegated cultural attributes of the objects uncovered in the Beerssheba Valley suggest an alternative notion to the question of the origin of the Iron Age I settlers. Contrary to the common views that looked for the roots of the Israelites exclusively in a single place of origin—in Egypt,

beersheba valley archaeology

87

Transjordan, or the semi-nomadic pastoral lands of the hill-country of Palestine—I suggested that the settlers be thought of as an amalgam of groups from diverse origins. I further suggested that this mixed population was attracted to the valley due to the improved climatic conditions. I maintained that it was possible to discern the origins of the occupants through the cultural aﬃnities of material objects. Accordingly, I claimed that they consisted of local pastoral-nomads, groups from the southern Coastal Plain, as well as members of the Canaanite communities. These settlers probably never considered themselves “Israelites.” Ethnic identity is a ﬂexible and manipulated phenomenon as postulated already in the late sixties (Barth 1969). The occupants of the Beersheba Valley may have become identiﬁed as Judeans only after the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Judah.

The Iron Age IIA: The Chronology Debate and the Red-Slipped Hand-Burnished Pottery The subsequent occupational phase in the Beersheba Valley is characterized by considerable growth and extensive expansion of settlements throughout the Negev. Rural settlements are exposed at Arad XII, Beersheba VII, Tel Masos II and in numerous sites in the valleys south and west of Beersheba and in the Negev Highlands. These unfortiﬁed settlements were thought to have belonged to the “settlement period” and were assigned to the pre-monarchic Iron Age I. Only the succeeding phase of fortiﬁed settlements was found ﬁt to be associated with the biblical “United Monarchy” and was assigned to Iron Age IIA (Aharoni 1976; Fritz and Kempinski 1983; Herzog 1984; Herzog et al. 1984). However, observations on the ceramic assemblages of these layers and their comparison to contemporary occupation at Tel Lachish suggested a revision of the previous view. Following Zimhoni’s pioneering study (1985), Lily Singer-Avitz and I re-analyzed the data at Arad and Tel Beersheba related to this period. Our revised reading of the typology and its chronological implications has shed new light on the understanding of the nature of the Iron Age IIA in general and on the chronology of the so-called “United Monarchy” in particular. The chronology of Iron Age IIA has been strongly debated in the last decade. One point, however, has been agreeable to all: The period was unanimously identiﬁed by utilization of the red-slipped and handburnished ware. Traditionally the strata bearing this pottery were asso-

88

zeev herzog

ciated with the 10th century BCE and the so-called “United Monarchy.” The end of this phase was associated with two events: the division of the “United Monarchy” into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the destruction of cities during the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I in 926 BCE. In most textbooks the Iron Age IIA was dated between 1000 and 925 BCE (Mazar 1990: 368–402). This dating is lately termed as the “conventional” or “high chronology”. In 1996 Finkelstein challenged this date arguing that all the assemblages bearing the red-slipped hand-burnished pottery should be assigned to the 9th century instead of the 10th (Finkelstein 1996). This dating is now known as the “low chronology.” Finkelstein also claimed that the country was not uniﬁed under a “United Monarchy” but was divided into several local chiefdoms within what he called the “New Canaan” (Finkelstein 2003). A further scholarly attempt to resolve the debate between the “high” and “low” chronology was undertaken by applying 14C dating. However, even this “scientiﬁc” method does not seem to resolve the discrepancy. The fact that both sides ﬁnd support for their opinion in the same factual data (Bruins, van der Flicht, and Mazar 2003; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2003) indicates that the 14C evidence is not decisive. Because of ﬂuctuations in solar radiation, identical levels of radioactive readings ﬁt both the “low” and the “high” chronology. We believe that the positive solution may be found in more precise analysis of the pottery. The typological breakdown of pottery types and the associated layers in the Beersheba Valley led Lily Singer-Avitz and me to suggest an alternative dating (Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004). We observed that the red-slipped hand-burnished pottery is present, with minor alterations, at two consecutive but quite diverse occupational phases. We claim that the reliance on the equation: fortiﬁcation = “United Monarchy” obscured the fact that the pottery was also used in the preceding, unfortiﬁed phase. Once this observation was secured through a meticulous scrutiny of the stratigraphical association of the pottery assemblages at Arad and Tel Beersheba, we were able to present our new conclusions, namely, that Iron Age IIA consists of two sub-phases: Early Iron Age IIA and Late Iron Age IIA. Accordingly, the assertion that the red-slipped hand-burnished pottery should be attributed exclusively either to the 10th or to the 9th century is erroneous. We suggest that the Iron Age IIA covers both centuries, from the mid-10th to the end of the 9th century, or even down to the mid-8th century BCE. This observation resolves the chronolog-

beersheba valley archaeology

89

ical debate. The divergent readings of 14C dates of objects associated with red-slipped hand-burnished pottery—advocated by the opposing opinions—actually demonstrate such an extended duration of the IAIIA.

Early Iron Age IIA and Shoshenq I We assign to the Early Iron Age IIA the assemblages exposed at Tel Masos II, Tel Beersheba VII, Tel Arad XII as well as the dozens of settlements in the Negev Highlands. The pottery of this phase is also found in Lachish Level V. Signiﬁcant markers of this phase are the popularity of red-slipped and hand burnished open bowls, the cookingpots with ﬂattened rim, thick-walled elongated pithoi, short-bodied pithoi and Phoenician “Bichrome Ware.” Many settlements in this phase share a common pattern. Domestic units are frequently arranged in a belt around the central courtyard, forming an “enclosed settlement” type (Herzog 1983). The central courtyard could have been used for penning the ﬂock of sheep and goats. The data from the Early Iron Age IIA suggests continuation of the favored ecological setting and the gradual growth of population in the region. Tel Masos II is the largest and most complex site in this phase. Although the site is primarily comprised of four-room houses, some units like Storehouse 1039 and Fort 480 indicate the emergence of an aﬄuent class within the settlement. Building 314 may have served a ceremonial role. The architecture of these units, as well as the variegated pottery assemblage, point to the emergence of a social elite at the site. Finkelstein claimed that the Sheshonq I list exhibits several regional polities throughout Palestine (Finkelstein 2002). The characteristics of Tel Masos suggest that it could have served as a “central place” for such consolidating of southern polity. The extensive wave of settlements in the Negev during the Early Iron Age IIA must be correlated with the extremely long list of placenames in southern Palestine listed by Shoshenq I (Aharoni 1979). However, although I acknowledge the presence of these settlements during the Shoshenq I campaign, I argue that this should not determine the end of Early Iron IIA. None of the occupations at Tel Masos II, Arad XII and Beersheba VII terminated in a conﬂagration. Indeed, Shoshenq’s motivation was to renew Egyptian hegemony over Pales-

90

zeev herzog

tine (Redford 1992). This is also indicated by the posting of Shoshenq’s stele at Megiddo, evidently not in a ruined city (Ussishkin 1990). Annihilating the settlements would have been a hindrance to the attainment of the economic beneﬁts Egypt wished to enjoy from its vassal country. The fact that the transition into the Late Iron Age IIA was not accompanied by intensiﬁed settlement is also quite instructive. Obviously the shift was not generated by prosperity. On the contrary, the principal site of Tel Masos was reduced in size (Stratum I) and eventually totally abandoned. The population in the valley was diminished, as were most of the peripheral settlements outside of the Beersheba Valley, and all of the Negev Highlands occupations were deserted. The more arid regions reverted to the hands of pastoral nomads. The best explanation for such socio-economic change seems to be a worsening of the climatic conditions—a return to the prevailing environmental state of the region. The combined stress imposed by the ecological deterioration and the political-economic burden following the Shoshenq I campaign generated the social change exhibited by the archaeological record. The economic shortage and the military threat might have stimulated the emergence of a managerial elite that was able to cope with the dire conditions. This leadership was responsible for the construction of the fortiﬁed centers that denote the Late Iron Age IIA. These circumstances portray a gradual process of transition to a rudimentary state in southern Palestine.

Redeﬁning the Center: Late Iron Age IIA The Late Iron Age IIA is characterized by the erection of fortiﬁed centers throughout the Beersheba Valley and the Shephelah. The cities of Lachish IV and Tel Beersheba V were erected as administrative strongholds, along with fortress constructed at Arad XI, and possibly a fort at Tel #Ira. The fortiﬁcations in the cities consisted of solid citywalls, about 4 meters wide, and large city-gates protected by an outergate (at Beersheba) or a bastion (at Lachish). The pottery in this phase is more variegated than that of the earlier phase. The percentage of hand-burnished bowls is reduced from 74 to 60 at Lachish, and from 77 to 45 at Tel Beersheba. This fact contradicts the attempt to consider this manner of surface treatment

beersheba valley archaeology

91

as an indicator for the crystallization of the “United Monarchy” (Faust 2002). Several new types of storage-jars appear now. Of special note are the forerunners of the lmlk jar, the four-handled holemouth jar and the small cylindrical holemouth jar. Imported vessels include Cypriot Black-on-Red and Bichrome ware that replace the Phoenician imports of the previous sub-phase. An important innovation of this phase is the concern for water supply. The planners of the cities made every eﬀort to assure a direct approach to water within the city’s fortiﬁcations, thus enabling the city to withstand a prolonged siege. Large underground reservoirs were hewn into the bedrock at Beersheba and Arad. The system at Beersheba could have been ﬁlled up by the winter ﬂooding of nearby Nahal Hebron, storing ca. 700 cubic meters of water (Herzog 2002). A smaller reservoir was uncovered at Arad and was apparently ﬁlled from the well located in the lower level. The water-system at Beit Shemesh was apparently dug at this time, too, although the nature of the fortiﬁcation was not fully determined (Bunimovitz and Lederman 2001). At Lachish a large shaft hewn in the rock was interpreted as an unﬁnished watersystem. Possibly the planners favored a more secure supply from a well dug on top of the hill. The investment of labor in these sophisticated water-supply systems, coupled with the enormous fortiﬁcations, point to the priority of military considerations of the planners. This Late Iron Age IIA phase provides us with a new understanding of the central role of the Beersheba Valley and the Shephelah in the state formation of Judah. The enormous scale of Lachish and the monumental palace erected in Level IV point to this site as a primecity of southern Palestine. The abundant archaeological evidence from the Shephelah and from the Beersheba Valley is in total contrast to the poor ﬁnds in Jerusalem and Hebron for this period. This sharp contrast led us to suggest that the emergence of state in Judah was initiated in the lowland regions rather than in the highlands (Herzog and SingerAvitz 2004). Jerusalem replaced Lachish and assumed its role as the capital of Judah only in the 8th century. The association of the red-slipped hand-burnished pottery to both phases of Iron Age IIA indicates that the emergence of state in southern Israel was a long and progressive process. Considering the Shoshenq I campaign as a chronological peg during the Early Iron Age IIA, we date the beginning of the period to the mid 10th century BCE. The transition from Early to Late Iron Age IIA might be assigned to the rounded date of 900 BCE. The transition to the Iron Age IIB should

92

zeev herzog

be assigned to the end of the 9th century or even to the mid 8th century BCE. The latter date is apparently related to a substantial earthquake. The totality of destruction of the immense fortiﬁcations at Tel Beersheba IV and the complete rebuilding of the Arad XI fortress suggest a major disaster. Builders of city III at Beersheba preferred replacing the former solid city-wall with a weak casemate wall. This may also suggest that the former city was not destroyed by a military attack. The drastic change of ceramic types in Iron Age IIB also points to a devastating event that aﬀected all pottery workshops in Judah. In my opinion such changes must have resulted from an earthquake. The biblical account of such an event (Amos 1:1) is attributed to the days of King Uzziah and dated to 760/750 BCE (Dever 1992; Austin, Franz and Frost 2000). However, the biblical text refrains from specifying the exact year during Uzziah’s reign for the occurrence. This vagueness may suggest that the event was already a remote memory, and that the awesome earthquake could have occurred at an earlier date. In one way or another, a rounded date of 800 BCE seems suitable for the transition from Late Iron Age IIA to Iron Age IIAB.

The Kingdom of Judah in the Iron Age IIB: Royal Administration In the Iron Age IIB, the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Judah and was ruled from its capital in Jerusalem. The cities at Lachish III and Tel Beersheba III-II became regional centers within the royal hierarchy (Herzog 1992). Additional occupations were uncovered at Arad, Tel #Ira, Tel Aroer and Tel Malhata. Several innovations are visible in this phase. At Tel Beersheba the new fortiﬁcation system was built with a more economic type of casemate city wall. The water-system was restored after the partial collapse of the roof. Stone-built walls were inserted to support the collapsed section. Inside the city, administrative and residential units were erected within a well-planned street network. Series of tripartite pillared-buildings uncovered at Tel Beersheba were interpreted as storehouses on the basis of hundreds of pottery vessels found in the destruction layer. Although the excavators of Megiddo claim that structures of this type were utilized as stables, there can be no doubt of their role at Beersheba. The pillared buildings served for the redistribution of commodities and household utensils to the functionaries of the kingdom who were stationed at the region.

beersheba valley archaeology

93

The administrative and commercial roles of the Beersheba Valley are also demonstrated by the numerous Hebrew inscriptions uncovered at Arad and Tel Beersheba (Aharoni 1973a, Aharoni 1981: 71–78). The relatively high degree of imported artifacts found at Tel Beersheba reveals its position as a gateway-community within the framework of the Assyrian-Empire long-distance trade during the 8th century. The foreign trade objects connect the Beersheba Valley with regions as far ﬂung as South-Arabia, Assyria, Egypt and Cyprus in addition to the shorter-range districts such as Phoenicia, Edom and Philistia (SingerAvitz 1999). The close similarity of IAIIB pottery assemblages found in the destruction layers of Beersheba II, Arad VIII, Aroer III and #Ira VII to the pottery of Lachish III indicates that all the settlements were destroyed during Sennacherib’s campaign in Judah in 701 BCE (Herzog and Singer-Avitz, Forthcoming). The only signiﬁcant variation is the scarcity of the stamped lmlk jars. Na"aman maintained that this fact should indicate that the settlements were destroyed in the days of Sargon II, before the lmlk jars were produced by Hezekiah (Na"aman 1986). Rainey argued that the absence of the lmlk jars results from the fact that the Beersheba Valley was beyond the limits of the royal administrative redistribution system (Rainey 1982). This interpretation seems logical from the ecological point of view. The environmental conditions in the valley could not support wine production. Recently Knauf suggested a date in the early 7th century BCE for the destruction of Beersheba II, suggesting it was possibly caused by Arab tribes (Knauf 2002). Knauf based his view on the date attributed to the “Busayra Painted Ware”. However, a recent re-study of the pottery repertoire revealed the presence of such a vessel in Stratum II (Singer-Avitz 2004), thus invalidating Knauf ’s argument.

Temples and Their Demolition: Evidence of Cult Reform? The rich cultic apparatus uncovered in the area is a unique Beersheba Valley phenomenon. The exposure of the temple at Arad in 1963 was considered a major surprise: For the ﬁrst time a legitimate cult place, dedicated to YHWH, was found within a royal Judean fortress. The chronological range of the temple at Arad was claimed by Aharoni to span the period from Solomon to Josiah (Strata XI-VII), from the 10th through the late 7th century BCE. He also assigned to the temple two

94

zeev herzog

phases of annihilation attributed to the cult reforms conducted, according to the biblical account, by Hezekiah and Josiah (Aharoni 1968). The temple consisted of a main broad-room hall and a protruding chamber on the western side. In front of the building was a square courtyard in which an altar was found. Aharoni compared the plan of the temple to that of the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem, and to the desert tabernacle described in the Book of Exodus (Aharoni 1973b). Ten years after the Arad discovery Aharoni exposed the remains of a magniﬁcent horned-altar at Tel Beersheba (Aharoni 1974). The discovery of these cultic remains generated heated discussions on the origin, dating, and termination of the cult places and their contribution to the reconstruction of the religion and cult in Judah (for summaries see Zevit 2000; Nakhai 2001). Was There a Kenite High-Place at Arad? Following the discovery of the temple at Arad and on the basis of the story in Judges 1:15–17, Benjamin Mazar speculated that an altar and masseboth have been erected there by the Kenites (Mazar 1965). Mazar’s assumption generated an attempt by the excavators to look for such an early cult place within the temple area. Indeed, a few stones near the later altar were interpreted as remains of an early altar and a curved wall was assumed to be a bamah or “high place” in Stratum XII (Aharoni 1976: Fig. 7; Herzog et al. 1984: Fig. 4). My renewed examination of the factual data resulted in totally different conclusions: The remains of Stratum XII at Arad form part of a common “enclosed settlement” with no cultic component (Herzog 2001a). Further observations revealed that the curved wall should be assigned to a house in Stratum XI according to the level of its foundations. The stones related to the hypothetical altar were probably part of a step in a Stratum X ﬂoor pavement (Herzog 2002:18–21). The speculated “high place” of the Kenites obviously resulted from the attempt to correlate the archaeological ﬁnd with the biblical account. It took us a few decades until it was possible to liberate the facts from the biblical bias.

beersheba valley archaeology

95

The Temple at Arad Reconsidered A complete re-evaluation of the stratigraphical data and the associated objects in each of the loci at Tel Arad led to a dramatic reassessment of the history of the temple. The temple was in use for a much shorter period than was originally assumed. No temple existed in either Stratum XI or Stratum VIII. My basic stratigraphical judgment asserts that the temple was in use only during Strata X-IX (Herzog 2001a). This evidence drastically reduces the life of the temple from about 350 years to only about 60 years during the 8th century BCE. Additional reassessments concerning some details of the temple at Arad should be pointed out. First, I found Aharoni’s attempt to reconstruct two pillars in front of the main hall of the temple, in the tradition of the Yachin and Boaz pillars of the Solomonic Temple, ﬂawed. The few scattered stones found near the entrance to the main hall cannot form pillar bases. Second, a new observation was made in regard to the elliptical installation in the courtyard, interpreted by Aharoni as a cultic water container comparable to the “molten sea” (yam hanekhoshet) in the Solomonic Temple. The reading in the daily dig diary forced a more prosaic role on the installation: The cereal grains found inside the installation point to it being a simple granary. Its function as a granary also resolves the enigma of why the alleged water container was not plastered. Both Aharoni’s interpretations obviously arose as an attempt to correlate the ﬁnds at Arad with the biblical details of the Temple in Jerusalem. A third point relates to the height of the altar in Stratum X. Previously it had been postulated to be a high structure with its top about 1.50 m above the ﬂoor of the temple. However, an examination of pictures of the altar as exposed indicates that the stone mantle does not reach the ﬂoor level of Stratum X, but is rather “ﬂoating in the air.” This indicates that the area around these stones had to be ﬁlled with soil when the altar reached this height. The only logical explanation for such a situation is that the level of the altar was raised concomitantly with the rise of ﬂoor level in Stratum IX. The inevitable conclusion is that the current level of the altar in Stratum IX, projecting ca. 40 cm above the ﬂoor, reﬂects the situation only in this stratum. In Stratum X the altar was evidently much lower, also projecting only about 50–80 cm above the ﬂoor. This observation solves the ambiguity about the way the allegedly high altar could be approached.

96

zeev herzog The Altar at Tel Beersheba

Beautifully dressed stones with rounded raised corners were uncovered within a ﬁeldstone wall at Tel Beersheba. The wall belongs to the tripartite pillared-house that was built in Stratum III and reutilized in Stratum II until its total destruction at the end of the 8th century BCE. The blocks were conﬁdently re-assembled by us in the form of a tall horned altar (Aharoni 1974). However, in light of the observation at the Arad temple I suggest reconstructing the altar at Beersheba at a muchreduced height. Additional blocks bearing the stains resulting from ﬁre and belonging to the central top part of the altar were uncovered in layers of a glacis outside the city-gate (Herzog, Rainey and Moshkovitz 1977). The original location of the altar could not have been assessed. The size and superb drafting of the stones suggests that it was incorporated within a proper temple. Aharoni suggested that the original location was under the “basement house” in the western side of the city, but no direct evidence to support this is available. The period of the initial use of the altar is assigned to Stratum III, similar to the date of the Strata X-IX temple at Arad.

The Evidence of Cult Reform The cult remains at both Arad and Tel Beersheba show evidence of intentional dismantling. The innermost chamber of the Arad temple contained two cubical altars that were found intact, buried under the ﬂoor level of Stratum IX. No sign of ﬁre was observed on either the altars and the stele or the blocks of white limestone platform inside the chamber. The cult objects of the temple’s “holy of holies” were obviously carefully and intentionally put out of sight. However, Aharoni’s assumption of a two-phase obliteration of the temple is impossible to sustain. No ﬂoor level in the temple could have been associated with Stratum VIII. The temple was fully dismantled and the remaining parts were covered over in a single act, most probably shortly before the destruction of the fortress of Stratum IX. Only a single act of cultic reform is exhibited at Arad. The incorporation of the horned parts of the Beersheba altar inside the storehouse wall (that was surely plastered over) also points to a deliberate intent to conceal them. The archaeological testimony at both sites indicates the presence of a royal cult institution during the 8th cen-

beersheba valley archaeology

97

tury BCE and of the intentional dismantling of these cult places before the end of that century. When Tel Beersheba II and Arad VIII were destroyed, apparently during Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 BCE, both cult places had long gone out of existence. My historian colleague Nadav Na"aman recently maintained that there is no archaeological evidence for an intentional cult reform at Arad and Tel Beersheba (Na"aman 2002). Regrettably Na"aman misconstrued the stratigraphical archaeological data. The available record does not support his conjecture that the temple at Arad was violently destroyed along with the Stratum VIII fortress. As we have just seen, the remains at both sites were not involved in a conﬂagration. Actually, Na"aman contradicts his own claim by admitting that “the intentional desertion of destroyed cultic sites in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah was part of the eﬀort of the rulers of the two kingdoms to centralize their rule by minimizing the number of cult places in their territories” (ibid.: 585). What is an “intentional desertion” of cult places in order to minimize their number if not a cultic reform? Do we have proof that this act of cultic reform at Beersheba and Arad was carried out by Hezekiah, as narrated in 2Kings 18:4 and 2Chr. 31:1? Although the typological data points to an 8th century BCE date for the annihilation of the cult places, we have no explicit evidence to ascertain that the intentional demolition was indeed ordered by the court of Hezekiah. However, with all my reservations toward simplistic correlation between biblical and archaeological data, I do believe that the similarity of the two sources is not simply fortuitous, and that the abolition of the cult places does indeed coincide with the biblical record (Rainey 1994; Herzog 2002). The Iron Age IIC: Co-Existence with the Edomites The last Iron Age phase, Iron Age IIC, demonstrates signiﬁcant expansion of settlement in the Beersheba Valley. Major occupations existed at Tel Malhata (Kochavi 1993), Tel #Ira (Beit-Arieh 1999), Tel #Aroer (Biran 1993), along with an unfortiﬁed occupation at Bir es-Seba# (modern Beersheva) (Gophna and Yisraeli 1973). Fortresses were constructed at Arad (Herzog 2002; Singer-Avitz 2002) and Hurvat #Uza (Beit-Arieh and Cresson 1991). Tel Beersheba was not rebuilt after the destruction of Stratum II, although we did observe some attempt at a ﬂimsy repair of the fortiﬁcations in the city-gate area (Aharoni 1973: 11–12). At

98

zeev herzog

Arad, Hurvat #Uza and Tel #Aroer dwelling quarters were uncovered in the open area outside the fortiﬁed settlements, indicating population growth as well as a clear sense of security. Such an intensiﬁcation of settlement in the valley must have resulted from prosperity and peace. The large centers at Tel Malhata and Tel #Ira and the abandonment of Tel Beersheba exhibit a shift eastwards of the centrality of the valley. The region evidently beneﬁted from the intensiﬁcation of international trade (observed already in the late 8th century), under the auspices of the Assyrian Empire and in cooperation with the Arab tribes (Elat 1993; Eph#al 1982). The international commercial cooperation might also have tolerated cultural symbiosis in the Beersheba Valley. This is demonstrated by the involvement of an Edomite ceremonial center at Qitmit and at En Hazeva (Beck 1996; Beit-Arieh 1995). The hypothesis regarding the political control of the region by the Edomites (Beit-Arieh 1996) seems unsound. The predominance of Judahite cultural aﬃnities (ostraca, seals and pottery) in the settlements of the Beersheba Valley, together with Edomite objects, point toward social cooperation and coexistence rather than military occupation. This prosperity was cut short at the beginning of the 6th century. The settlements in the Beersheba Valley were completely destroyed at the same time as the fall of the Kingdom of Judah. The region remained deserted for about 200 years. Concluding Remarks The Beersheba Valley provides us with an exceptional combination of aﬄuent archaeological record, concentrated analytic eﬀort and marginal ecological setting. Such a correspondence of factors makes the region a unique laboratory for studying processes of social adaptation. The current brief survey of the history of the valley in the Iron Age demonstrates the outstanding potential of archaeology in revealing the processes of social changes and their interaction with the changing environmental setting. Freed from the traditional “biblical archaeology” paradigm, archaeology is providing the unprejudiced reconstruction of an ancient way of life. Neither biblical nor extra-biblical sources could have envisioned what archaeology in retrospect can evince. Thus, archaeology demonstrates the fragmentary nature of the biblical record.

beersheba valley archaeology

99

List of works cited Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: a historical geography (London, 1967). ———, “Arad: its inscriptions and temple,” BA 31 (1968), pp. 20–32. ———, (ed.) Beer-sheba I: excavations at Tel Beer-sheba, 1969–1971 seasons (Tel Aviv, 1973a). ———, “The Solomonic temple, the tabernacle and the Arad sanctuary,” in: H.A. Hoﬀner (ed.) Orient and Occident: the C.H. Gordon Festschrift (NeukirchenVluyn, 1973b), pp. 1–8. ———, “The horned altar of Beer-sheba,” BA 37 (1974), pp. 2–23. ———, “Nothing early and nothing late: rewriting Israel’s conquest,” BA 39 (1976), pp. 55–76. ———, The Land of the Bible: a historical geography (Philadelphia, 1979). ———, Arad inscriptions (Jerusalem, 1981). W.F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine (Harmondsworth, 1960). ———, “Abraham the Hebrew: a new archaeological interpretation,” BASOR 163 (1961), pp. 36–54. ———, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York, 1963). S.A. Austin, G.W. Franz, and E.G. Frost. “Amos’s earthquake: an extraordinary Middle East seismic event of 750 B.C,” International Geology Review 12 (2000), pp. 657–671. D. Baly, The Geography of the Bible: a study in historical geography (New York, 1957). M. Bar-Matthews, A. Ayalon, A. Kaufman, and G.J. Wasserburg, “The Eastern Mediterranean Paleoclimate as a Reﬂection of Regional Events: Soreq Cave, Israel,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 166 (1999), pp. 85–95. F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: the social organization of culture diﬀerence (Boston, 1969). P. Beck, “Horvat Qitmit revisited via #En Hazeva,” Tel Aviv 23 (1996), pp. 102– 114. I. Beit-Arieh, Hurvat Qitmit: an Edomite shrine in the biblical Negev, Monograph series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 11 (Tel Aviv, 1995). ———, “Edomite advance into Judah,” BAR 22 (1996), pp. 29–36. ——— (ed.), Tel #Ira: a stronghold in the biblical Negev, Monograph series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 15 (Tel Aviv, 1999). ———, and B. Cresson, “Hurvat #Uza: a fortiﬁed outpost on the eastern Negev border,” BA 54 (1991), pp. 126–135. A. Biran, “Aroer (in Judea),” The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 1 (1993), pp. 89–92. F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York, 1972). H. Bruins, J.J. van der Flicht, and A. Mazar, “14C dates from Tel Rehov: Iron Age chronology, pharaohs, and Hebrew kings,” Science 300 (2003), pp. 315– 318. S. Bunimovitz, and Z. Lederman, “The Iron Age fortiﬁcations of Tel Beth Shemesh: a 1990–2000 perspective,” IEJ 51 (2001), pp. 121–147.

100

zeev herzog

K.W. Butzer, Archaeology as Human Ecology: method and theory for a contextual approach (Cambridge, 1982). W.G. Dever, “A case-study in biblical archaeology: the earthquake of ca. 760 B.C.E,” Eretz-Israel 23 (1992), pp. 27*–35*. ———, “What remains of the house that Albright built?,” BA 56 (1993), pp. 25–35. D.F. Dincauze, Environmental Archaeology: principles and practices (Cambridge, 2000). M. Elat, “International trade of the Assyrian Empire and its traders,” EretzIsrael 24 (1993), pp. 12–17 (Hebrew). I. Eph#al, The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the borders of the fertile crescent, 9th–5th centuries B.C. (Leiden, 1982). A. Faust, “Burnished Pottery and Gender Hierarchy in Iron Age Israelite Society,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15 (2002), pp. 53–73. I. Finkelstein, Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem, 1988). ———, “The archaeology of the united monarchy: an alternative view,” Levant 28 (1996), pp. 177–187. ———, “The campaign of Shoshenq I to Palestine: a guide to the 10th century BCE polity,” ZDPV 118 (2002), pp. 109–135. ———, “City-states to state: polity dynamics in the 10th–9th centuries B.C.E.,” in: W.G. Dever and S. Gitin (ed.), Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past (Winona Lake, Indiana, 2003), pp. 75–83. ———, and E. Piasetzky, “Recent radiocarbon results and King Solomon,” Antiquity 77 (2003), pp. 771–779. ——— and N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: archaeology’s new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts (New York, 2001). M.D. Fowler, “The excavation of Tell Beer-Sheba and the biblical record,” PEQ 114 (1982), pp. 7–11. V. Fritz, “The Israelite ‘conquest’ in the light of recent excavations at Khirbet el-Meshash,” BASOR 241 (1981), pp. 61–73. ———, and A. Kempinski, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen auf der Hirbet el-Masas (Tel Masos) 1972–1975 Vol. I–III (Wiesbaden, 1983). A. Frumkin, and Y. Elitzur, “Historic Dead Sea level ﬂuctuations calibrated with geological and archaeological evidence.” Quaternary Research 57 (2002), pp. 334–342. R. Gophna, and Y. Yisraeli, “Soundings at Beer-Sheva (Bir es-Seba#),” in: Y. Aharoni (ed.), Beer-sheba I: excavations at Tel Beer-sheba, 1969–1971 seasons (Tel Aviv, 1973), pp. 115–118. Z. Herzog, “Beer-sheba of the Patriarchs,” BAR 6 (1980), pp. 12–28. ———, “Enclosed settlements in the Negeb and the wilderness of Beer-Sheba,” BASOR 250 (1983), pp. 41–49. ———, Beer-Sheba II: the Early Iron Age Settlements, Publications of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 7 (Tel Aviv, 1984). ———, “From nomadism to monarchy in the Beer-sheba valley,” in: N. Na"aman and I. Finkelstein (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy: archaeological and historical aspects of early Israel (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 215–241 (Hebrew). ———, “Settlement and fortiﬁcation planning in the Iron Age,” in: A. Kempin-

beersheba valley archaeology

101

ski and R. Reich (eds.), The Architecture of Ancient Israel: from the prehistoric to the Persian periods (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 231–274. ———, “The Beer-Sheba valley: from nomadism to monarchy,” in: I. Finkelstein and N. Na"aman (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy: archaeological and historical aspects of early Israel (Jerusalem, 1994), pp. 122–149. ———, “The date of the temple at Arad: reassessment of the stratigraphy and the implications for the history of religion in Judah,” in: A. Mazar (ed.), Studies in the archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan, JSOT Sup. 331 (Sheﬃeld, 2001a), pp. 156–178. ———, “Deconstructing the walls of Jericho: biblical myth and archaeological reality,” Prometheus 4 (2001b), pp. 72–93. ———, “The scientiﬁc revolution in the Archaeology of Eretz Israel,” in: L.I. Levine and A. Mazar (ed.), Controversy over the Historicity of the Bible (Jerusalem, 2001c), pp. 52–65 (Hebrew). ———, “The fortress mound at Tel Arad: an interim report,” Tel Aviv 29 (2002a), pp. 3–109. ———, “Water supply at Tel Beersheba in the 1st Millennium BCE,” in: C. Ohlig, Y. Peleg, and T. Tsuk (ed.), Cura Acuarum in Israel, In memoriam Dr. Ya"akov Eren: proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region Israel 7–12 May 2001, Schriften der Deutschen Wasserhistorischen Gesellschaft [DWhG] 1 (Siegburg, 2002b), pp. 15–22. ———, M. Aharoni, A.F. Rainey, and S. Moshkovitz. “The Israelite fortress at Arad,” BASOR 254 (1984), pp. 1–34. ———, A.F. Rainey, and S. Moshkovitz, “Stratigraphy at Beer-Sheba and the location of the sanctuary,” BASOR 225 (1977), pp. 49–58. ———, and L. Singer-Avitz, “Redeﬁning the Center: Emergence of State in Judah,” Tel Aviv 31 (2004), pp. 209–244. ———, and L. Singer-Avitz. “Pottery of Iron Age IIA-B in Judah,” in: S. Gitin (ed.) The ancient pottery of Israel and its neighbors: from the Neolithic through the Hellenistic period (Jerusalem, Forthcoming). E.A. Knauf, “Who destroyed Beersheba II?,” in: U. Hübner, and E. A Knauf (eds.) Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnari für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag, 186 (Freiburg, Göttingen, 2002), pp. 181–195. M. Kochavi, “The beginning of Israelite material culture,” Sixth Archaeological Conference in Israel (Tel Aviv, 1979). ———, “Malhata, Tel,” The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 3 (1993), pp. 934–936. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientiﬁc Revolutions (2nd edition; Chicago, 1970). B.O. Long, Planting and Reaping Albright: politics, ideology, and interpreting the Bible (University Park, PA, 1997). A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000–586 B.C.E. (New York, 1990). B. Mazar, “The campaign of Pharaoh Shishak to Palestine,” SVT 4 (1957), pp. 57–66. ———, “The sanctuary of Arad and the family of Hobab the Kenite,” JNES 24 (1965), pp. 297–303.

102

zeev herzog

———, “The historical background of the Book of Genesis,” JNES 28 (1969), pp. 73–83. N. Na"aman, “The inheritance of the sons of Simeon,” ZDPV 96 (1980), pp. 136–152. ———, “Hezekiah’s fortiﬁed cities and the lmlk stamp,” BASOR 261 (1986), pp. 5–24. ———, “The abandonment of cult places in the kingdom of Israel and Judah as acts of cult reform,” UF 34 (2002), pp. 585–602. B.A. Nakhai, Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel (Boston, 2001). A.F. Rainey, “Wine from the royal vineyards,” BASOR 245 (1982), pp. 57–62. ———, “Hezekiah’s reform and the altars at Beer-Sheba and Arad,” in: M.D. Coogan, C.J. Exum, and L.E. Stager (eds.), Scripture and Other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and archaeology in honor of Philip J. King (Louisville, Kentucky, 1994), pp. 334–354. D.B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, 1992). B. Schilman, M. Bar-Matthews, A. Almogi-Labina, and B. Luzb, “Global climate instability reﬂected by Eastern Mediterranean marine records during the late Holocene,” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 176 (2001), pp. 157–176. L. Singer-Avitz, “Beersheba—a gateway community in Southern Arabian long-distance trade in the eighth century B.C.E,” Tel Aviv 26 (1999), pp. 3– 74. ———, “Arad: the Iron Age pottery assemblages,” Tel Aviv 29 (2002), pp. 110– 214. M. Skjeggestad, Facts in the Ground? Biblical history in archaeological interpretation of the Iron Age in Palestine, Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo 3 (Oslo, 2001). T.L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: the quest for the historical Abraham, BZAW 133 (New York, 1974). D. Ussishkin, “Notes on Megiddo, Gezer, Ashdod, and Tel Batash in tenth to ninth centuries BC,” BASOR 277/278 (1990), pp. 71–91. J. van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven and London, 1975). G.E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (New and rev. edition; Philadelphia, 1962). Z. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A synthesis of parallactic approaches (New York, 2000). O. Zimhoni, “The Iron Age pottery of Tel #Eton and its relation to the Lachish, Tell Beit Mirsim and Arad assemblages,” Tel Aviv 12 (1985), pp. 63– 90.

DIE GESCHICHTE DER ABRAHAMÜBERLIEFERUNG

Matthias Köckert Die Abrahamüberlieferung hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten viel ertragen müssen. Es dürfte unter uns nur wenige geben, die sich zu ihr noch nie geäußert haben. Das liegt daran, dass sie als Exerzierfeld bei jeder neuen Wendung der Pentateuchforschung hoch willkommen ist. Das liegt mehr noch an der Größe dieser Texte. Doch die stecken voller Probleme. So haben wir eigentlich alles, was wir brauchen: große Texte und zahlreiche Probleme. Eines haben wir leider nicht: ausreichend Zeit. Da ist guter Rat teuer. Ein Sprichwort empﬁehlt: Hast du es eilig, dann mache einen Umweg! Diesem Rat will ich folgen. Deshalb werfe ich zunächst einige Blicke von außen auf die Abrahamüberlieferung. Dabei bediene ich mich der wenigen Texte außerhalb des Pentateuch, die Abraham erwähnen. Wie reden sie von Abraham? Welche Schlüsse lassen sich daraus für die von ihnen gebrauchte Abrahamüberlieferung ziehen? Sodann befrage ich kurz die Komposition des Ganzen von Gen 12–25 nach Hinweisen auf mögliche Vorformen. Dabei helfen mir der geographische Aufriß und Einsichten in die Erzählbögen weiter. Abschließend gehe ich den umgekehrten Weg und entwickle aus alledem ein Bild von den ältesten Überlieferungen bis zur heute vorliegenden Gestalt. 1. Abraham außerhalb des Pentateuch Schon die Streuung der Belege ist aufschlussreich. Außerhalb von Gen 12–50 erscheint Abra(ha)m 44mal, allermeist jedoch nur formelhaft in Verbindung mit (Isaak und) Jakob. Dass er weder in die Josephserzählung noch in die Weisheit und—bis auf Ps 47:10 und 105—auch nicht in den Psalter Eingang gefunden hat, mag mit der anderen geistigen Welt dieser Überlieferungen zu erklären sein. Auﬀälliger ist der magere Befund im Corpus Propheticum. Von den sieben Belegen1 dürfte allein

1

Jes 29:22; 41:8; 51:2; 63:16; Jer 33:26; Ez 33:24; Mi 7:20.

104

matthias köckert

Ez 33:24 hinter die Exilszeit zurückgehen. Alle anderen sind deutlich jünger. Die Konturen, die Abraham selten genug außerhalb der Genesis erhält, entsprechen ganz den Bildern, die Gen 12–25 entwerfen. Anderes als dort zu lesen steht, wusste man—jedenfalls im Alten Testament—von Abraham nicht zu erzählen. Diese auﬀällig spärliche und späte Rezeption Abrahams nährt schon vorab die Vermutung, dass die Überlieferung vom ersten und ehrwürdigsten der drei Patriarchen überlieferungsgeschichtlich am jüngsten sein wird. 1.1. Der wahrscheinlich älteste Beleg für Abraham außerhalb des Pentateuch ﬁndet sich in Ez 33:23–29. Die als Disputationswort stilisierte Gottesrede ist in der Komposition des Buches an herausragender Stelle plaziert; denn sie ergeht, unmittelbar nachdem ein Bote die Nachricht vom Fall Jerusalems überbracht hat. Sie setzt mit einem Zitat der im Lande Überlebenden ein. Die Gottesrede spricht von ihnen als „Bewohnern dieser Trümmer im Lande Juda“. Das passt zur Situation des Untergangs der Stadt, die der Kontext vorgibt. Unter ihnen macht ein geﬂügeltes Wort die Runde. Mit ihm melden die Überlebenden Ansprüche auf den Besitz des Landes an: Ein einzelner war Abraham, und er besaß das Land. Wir aber sind viele, uns ist das Land zum Besitz gegeben!

Wie ist das Zitat zu verstehen? Eine Antwort wird dadurch erschwert, dass wir nicht genau wissen, welches sein ursprünglicher Kontext war. Sein gegenwärtiger Buchkontext kann es jedenfalls nicht gewesen sein; denn die V. 27–28,29 setzen die Existenz des Tempels noch voraus,2 und V. 25–26 fehlen in der Septuaginta.3 Es spricht also manches dafür, das Zitat zunächst als Einzelwort, eben als Losung der Judäer im Lande zu deuten. Abraham als einzelnem stehen die vielen im Lande Verbliebenen gegenüber. Was beide verbindet, ist der Besitz des Landes. Will sagen: Wenn schon der Eine das Land besaß, dann umso mehr die Vielen—mögen die Umstände auch eine ganz andere Sprache sprechen. Die Parole für sich gelesen lebt noch nicht von der Konfronta2 Vgl. 33:28 mit 24:21. In dieser Hinsicht dürfte Th. Krüger, Geschichtskonzepte im Ezechielbuch, BZAW 180 (Berlin, 1988), 323 f., mit seiner Vermutung recht haben, allerdings nur für die Parole als solche. 3 Die Septuaginta kennt außerdem in V. 24 den Rückverweis („diese Trümmer“) auf die gefallene Stadt in V. 21f. nicht.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

105

tion mit der ersten Gola, sondern reagiert allein auf die bedrängende Lage nach 597. Sie ist aus dem Geist eines trotzigen „Jetzt erst recht!“4 geboren und fügt sich schlecht zu den noch rauchenden Trümmern, die der Kontext suggeriert. Als geﬂügeltes Wort der „Selbstvergewisserung“5 könnte es durchaus in der Zeit nach der ersten Deportation aufgekommen sein. Erst die Verbindung mit V. 27–29 macht aus der Selbstermunterung der im Lande Verbliebenen einen Anspruch gegen die Gola. Mit der Ankündigung eines totalen Gerichts, das Juda und Jerusalem in eine Wüste verwandeln werde, weist der Prophet diese Ansprüche ab. Diese zweite Lesart hat ein deutliches Seitenstück in 11:14–16. Dort polemisieren die Jerusalemer ausdrücklich gegen die Exilierten und sprechen mit ähnlichen Worten, allerdings ohne Rekurs auf Abraham, der Gola jegliche Teilhabe am Land unter dem Gott des Landes ab.6 Erst die Einordnung von 33:23–29 an seinen gegenwärtigen Ort innerhalb der Buchkomposition versetzt das geﬂügelte Wort in die Zeit nach 587.7 So wurde aus dem Schlagwort nationaler Selbstvergewisserung zwischen den beiden Deportationen die schroﬀe Abweisung der Gola. Mit der Frage nach dem Land stand freilich weder vor noch nach 587 eine belanglose Marginalie zur Debatte. Das Land war ja nichts weniger als das geradezu sakramentale Unterpfand jener Symbiose von Gott, König, Volk und Land, die vor der Katastrophe Identität verbürgte. Dessen Bedeutung musste noch zunehmen, nachdem der König dahin war und der Tempel in Trümmern lag. Umso bemerkenswerter ist, wie diese Ansprüche auf das Land begründet werden. Vier Sachverhalte sind an dieser Parole aufschlussreich. (1) Das Thema Land wird weder mit Jakob verbunden, noch mit den (Exodus-) Landnahme-Vätern8, sondern allein mit Abraham. Daraus 4 O. Eichrodt, Der Prophet Hesekiel, ATD 22 (3. Auﬂ. Göttingen, 1968), 320: Das Losungswort wolle „die schwere Wiederaufbauarbeit als Gottes Willen schmackhaft machen“, setze aber „die nationale Wiederaufrichtung mit dem Willen Gottes in eins“. 5 So E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte, WMANT 57 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1984), 296, und K.-F. Pohlmann, Der Prophet Hesekiel, ATD 22/2 (Göttingen, 2001), 454f. 6 Dafür steht dort kontextgemäß Jerusalem. 7 Noch später dürfte die Begründung der Totalvernichtung mit den ethischen Disqualiﬁkationen in V. 25–26 eingefügt worden sein. Sie fehlt in der Septuaginta, ist nahezu vollständig mit Material aus Ez 18 und 22 gearbeitet und ist auch an der Wiederaufnahme von V. 25a in V. 27a zu erkennen. Sie verlagert den Streit um den rechtmäßigen Besitz des Landes von dem Gegensatz zwischen Gola und im Lande Verbliebenen auf das ethische Feld. 8 S. für das eine Ez 28:25 und 37:25, für das andre 20:28,42 und 47:14. Daß es sich

106

matthias köckert

folgt: Oﬀensichtlich suchen die Judäer, ihre Identität über Abraham zu vergewissern. Was andere Texte—wie etwa Ez 20—mit dem Exodus verbinden, leistet hier Abraham. (2) Zwar ist von Abraham in jener Parole weder als „Vater“ noch von den Überlebenden als „Abrahams Samen“ die Rede, doch setzt die Argumentation nicht nur die selbstverständliche Bekanntheit der Abrahamgestalt voraus, sondern sie beruht auf dem genealogischen Zusammenhang derer, die sich des Besitzes des Landes versichern, mit Abraham als ihrem Ahn. Daraus folgt: Das hinter dieser Argumentation erkennbare Selbstverständnis setzt zwingend eine judäische Abrahamüberlieferung in vorexilischer Zeit voraus. (3) Einige Rückschlüsse auf Konturen dieser Überlieferung sind vielleicht noch möglich. Zunächst einmal sehen jene Judäer in ihrem Ahn Abraham, dem eigenen Selbstverständnis gemäß, eine autochthone Gestalt. Als erster Einwanderer würde er der Argumentation die Pointe verderben. Daraus folgt: Die Erzählzüge, die Abraham von außen ins Land bringen, können schwerlich schon zur Abrahamüberlieferung in der Königszeit gehört haben. Sodann rekurrieren die Judäer zwar auf den Tatbestand, dass ihr Ahn einst das Land besaß (yrˇs), nicht aber auf eine göttliche Verheißung.9 Jedenfalls macht Ez 33:24 von der Vorstellung einer Landverheißung keinen Gebrauch.10 Das wäre doch sehr verwunderlich, wenn diese Überlieferung zu den geläuﬁgen Credenda dieser Judäer gehört hätte. Warum hätten sie auf diese Argumentationshilfe verzichten sollen? Daraus folgt: Eine Verheißung des Landes gehörte oﬀensichtlich nicht zu den Proﬁlen der hier vorausgesetzten Abrahamüberlieferung. (4) Ez 33:24 setzt mit der Verwendung des Lexems „Besitz/besitzen“ (mrˇsh/yrˇs) andere Akzente. Ein vergleichbares Interesse am Leitwort yrˇs („erben, besitzen“) ﬁndet sich in der Abrahamüberlieferung nur noch in Gen 15.11 Dort aber sind der Besitz des Landes und dessen Erbe aufs in 20:28 nicht um die Erzväter, sondern um die Exodus- bzw. Landnahmegeneration handelt, erhellt aus dem Zusammenhang von V. 27–28. 9 Selbst wenn man mit E. Blum (Anm. 5), S. 296, das Passiv des Gabesatzes („… uns ist das Land gegeben…“) als passivum divinum auf Gott bezieht, lässt sich damit allenfalls die Feststellung „Gott hat gegeben“, nicht aber eine Landverheißung begründen. 10 So schon J. v. Seters, „Confessional Reformulation in the Exilic Period“, VT 22 (1972), 448–459.449, und Th. Römer, Israels Väter. Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition, OBO 90 (Freiburg, 1990), 515. E. Blum (Anm. 5), 296, geht dagegen von der Verheißung aus, weil das Thema Land in Gen 12 ﬀ. nicht anders erscheine. 11 Darauf hat schon Th. Römer (Anm. 10), 515, hingewiesen. Mit Ez 33:24 verbinden

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

107

Äußerste in Frage gestellt, und Abraham ist schon längst zur Identiﬁkationsﬁgur für Israel überhaupt geworden. Was Ez 33:23–29 den Judäern bestreitet und damit für die Gola oﬀenhält, bringt Gen 15 in der Erzählﬁgur Abraham zusammen, der aus Ur-Kasdim gezogen (15:7), nun in Jerusalem (Gen 15 nach 14) den Besitz des Landes für seine leiblichen Nachkommen von Gott eidlich zugesichert erhält (15:8,18). Gen 15 hat aus dem Gewährsmann für die im Lande Überlebenden einen exemplarischen Rückkehrer aus der Gola gemacht. Aus diesen Verschiebungen folgt: Gen 15 mag zur Wirkungsgeschichte von Ez 33 gehören, kann aber niemals Teil der Abrahamüberlieferung gewesen sein, die in Ez 33 vorausgesetzt wird.12 1.2. Mit Ez 33 ist Jes 51:1–8 mehrfach verbunden. Beide Stücke sind als Gottesrede gestaltet.13 Hier wie dort kommen die Trümmer in den Blick, in die Stadt und Land gesunken sind. Hier wie dort spielt Abraham eine exemplarische Rolle für die Gegenwart. Beide Anspielungen auf Abraham leben vom Gegensatz zwischen dem Einen einst und den Vielen jetzt und inskünftig. Beide Texte richten sich an die Exilierten und an die Jerusalemer. So viele Gemeinsamkeiten—und doch ist Jes 51 auf einen anderen Ton gestimmt als Ez 33. Schon die Adressaten der Gottesrede werden hier völlig anders gezeichnet. Der Rahmen stellt sie in V. 1 und 7 als Gottsucher vor, die dem Heil nachjagen und es kennen. Sie sind ein Volk, das gar nicht anders kann, als Gottes Willen zu tun; denn die Tora in seinem Herzen (V. 7) bestimmt all seine Neigungen und Entscheidungen. Dieser anthropologischen Neuschöpfung entspricht die Verwandlung des Zion in V. 3. Aus der Stätte grausigen Gerichts ist ein Ort geworden, der göttliche Tröstung erfahren hat. Seine Verwüstungen sind einem Gottesgarten wie Eden gewichen. Lobgesänge, keine Klagelieder erfüllen den Ort. Auch Abraham Gen 15 unter anderem die Kombination der Lexeme yrˇs +ntn beim Thema Land (V. [3,4] 7–8+18) und der argumentative Zusammenhang von einem und vielen, der in Gen 15 aber ausdrücklich genealogisch an den Themen Sohn/Nachkommenschaft (V. 3.4) und Mehrung (V. 5) durchgespielt wird. 12 Das gilt auch für Ex 6:8, einem Text, der gleichfalls den Anspruch der überlebenden Judäer in eine eidliche Verheißung des Landes (ntn … mwrˇsh) für Gesamtisrael verwandelt. 13 Nur 51:3 fällt als hymnische Antwort aus der Gottesrede, was auf die verwickelte Literargeschichte des Stückes hinweist.

108

matthias köckert

erscheint in neuem Licht. Aus dem Gewährsmann zur Rechtfertigung von Ansprüchen ist ein Beispiel für Gottes Heil geworden, von Gott gerufen, gesegnet und gemehrt. Weil Abraham hier—anders als in Ez 33:24—nicht für das Thema Land in Anspruch genommen wird, sondern für das Thema Mehrung, kommt er ausdrücklich als „euer Vater“ und in Verbindung mit Sara in ihrer Funktion als Mutter ins Spiel. Für wen steht das Erzelternpaar? Die literarische Komposition 51:1– 8 arbeitet mit drei Adressaten. Das Fachwerk der Höraufrufe in V. 1a,4a,7a nimmt das Gottesvolk als Ganzes in den Blick. Dem ersten Höraufruf folgen zwei gleichlautende Imperative, an die zwei ky-Sätze angeschlossen sind. Gewöhnlich deutet man schon V. 1b auf Abraham und Sara als Parallelismus zu V. 2a. Dagegen spricht jedoch, dass in dieser Deutung der zweite ky-Satz keinen adäquaten Bezug hat. Dagegen spricht weiter, dass „Fels“ zwar als Metapher für Gott oder den Zion gebraucht wird, niemals jedoch für Menschen. Dagegen sprechen schließlich die Verben in V. 1b, die niemals auf Geburt oder genealogischen Abstammung bezogen werden. Deshalb sollte man V. 1b nicht mit V. 2a verbinden. Unmittelbar evident ist zunächst einmal allein V. 2: Blickt auf Abraham, euren Vater, und auf Sara, die mit euch in Wehen liegt! Denn als einen einzelnen habe ich ihn gerufen; ich will ihn segnen und mehren.

„Blickt auf Abraham … und Sara …!“ Was gibt es da zu sehen? Antwort: Segen und Mehrung. Gottes Ruf hat aus dem Einen viele gemacht. Das musste den Adressaten aus der Schrift und an sich selbst einleuchten. Alles spricht dafür, dass Jes 51:2 mit dem Erzelternpaar die Jerusalemer anredet. Wer aber sind die Adressaten von V. 1b, und was sollen sie sehen? Blickt auf den Felsen, (aus dem) ihr gehauen, und auf den Brunnenschacht, (aus dem) ihr gebrochen seid!

Für eine Antwort kommt im Kontext nur V. 3 in Frage.14 Der verweist auf den Wiederaufbau der Trümmer und die Verwandlung der Wüste Zions in einen bewässerten Gottesgarten. Diese vom Kontext nahege14 Der für eine ursprüngliche Einheit beschwerliche Wechsel aus der Gottesrede in die 3. Pers. erklärt sich in der literarischen Komposition als Bezugnahme auf 49:13; 52:9 (so m. R. O.H. Steck, „Zions Tröstung. Beobachtungen und Fragen zu Jesaja 51,1– 11“, in: ders., Gottesknecht und Zion. Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja, FAT 4 [Tübingen, 1992], 86).

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

109

legte Verbindung wird von den Metaphern „Fels“ und „Brunnen“ in V. 1b gestützt. Wie O.H. Steck in einer scharfsinnigen Studie gezeigt hat, stehen sie für den Zion als Ort der Gegenwart Gottes15, während die Verben auf die gewaltsame Trennung der Angeredeten vom Zion zielen. Dann kann in V. 1b nur die Diaspora angesprochen sein. Sie soll auf Zions Wiederaufbau als Gottesgarten sehen. Vers 2 wendet sich dagegen an die Zionbewohner. Sie sollen an ihrem Ahnpaar sehen, wie Gottes Segen aus einem einzelnen viele machen kann. Wie soll das in der Gegenwart der Adressaten geschehen? Die Antwort gibt der Höraufruf im Rahmen V. 1 + 7, indem er beide Adressaten zu einem Volk verbindet. Durch Rückkehr aus der Diaspora werden die exilierten Zionkinder zu Söhnen und Töchtern Abrahams und Saras. In diesem Lichte erhält der Wechsel in die Präformativkonjugation jeweils im Parallelkolon von V. 2 sachliche Bedeutung.16 Mit Aﬀormativkonjugation und Narrativ ist die Vergangenheit in der Schrift im Blick, mit der Präformativkonjugation kommen Gegenwart und Zukunft zur Geltung. Die Geburt der Kinder Abrahams ist noch nicht abgeschlossen, Sara ist noch am Gebären, und Gott ist gerade dabei, Abraham zu segnen17 und zahlreich zu machen. 15 O.H. Steck (Anm. 14), bes. 84–86. „Fels“ ist in Ps 27:5 eng mit Gottes Zelt, seiner Hütte und seinem Tempel verbunden. In 61:3 erscheint der Fels als Zuﬂuchtsort des Beters, der Schutz verbürgt, weil dort Gott selbst in seinem Zelt präsent ist (V. 5). Auch hier ist also der Fels eine Metapher für den Zion. Am deutlichsten in dieser Sache spricht Jes 30:29: „Auf den Berg des Herrn“ heißt dort „zum Felsen Israels gehen“. Der Beleg zeigt zugleich, wie „Fels“ zwischen einer Metapher für den Zion und für den Ziongott oszilliert. Die Deutungen von P. Volz, Jesaja II, KAT IX/2 (Leipzig, 1932), 110f., und von N.A. v. Uchelen, „Abraham als Felsen (Jes 51,1)“, ZAW 80 (1968), 183–191, scheitern daran, dass überzeugende Belege für die behauptete Vorstellung für Abraham als Felsen fehlen. Schwieriger liegen die Dinge beim Lexem „Brunnen“; denn das erscheint sonst nicht als Metapher für den Zion. Doch gehören Wasser, Quelle oder Strom zu den festen Topoi des Tempels wie des Zion: Ps 46:5; 87:7; Jes 33:21; Ez 47 u.ö. Die Wahl des Lexems ist einerseits von der wunderbaren Verwandlung angeregt, die V. 3 berichtet. Anderseits ermöglicht das Bild vom Brunnenschacht ein zum ersten Kolon passendes Verb: Vom Felsen „abgehauen“ (h. s. b) dort entspricht hier aus dem Brunnen „ausgebrochen“ (nqr). Selbst wenn man bwr als erläuternde Glosse herausnimmt (so die syr. Übersetzung und von den neueren Auslegern J.L. Koole, Isaiah III / Vol. 2: Isaiah 49–55, HCOT [Leuven, 1998], 140) und mqbt als „Steinbruch“ versteht, gäbe das als Beschreibung des zerstörten Zion guten Sinn. 16 Die LXX übersetzt freilich mit Aorist. 17 Die Masoreten haben beim ersten Verb in V. 2b AK vokalisiert, beim zweiten und dritten jedoch nicht Narrative, sondern wPK, während die Versionen mit Aoristen u. ä. übersetzen. Zum Tempusgebrauch im MT und dessen sachlicher Bedeutung vgl. 51:9– 11: JHWHs Arm hat den Weg bereits bereitet (V. 10), die Freigekauften kehren zurück und werden mit Freuden in Zion einziehen (PK+wAK in V. 11).

110

matthias köckert

So sind Abraham und Sara in Jes 51 Identiﬁkationsﬁguren des einen, durch die Rückkehr aus der Diaspora wunderbar gemehrten Volkes geworden. Welche Akzente setzt Jes 51:1–8 mit der Abrahamüberlieferung? (1) Dieser Text formuliert mit Abraham nicht die Diﬀerenz zwischen Gola und Jerusalemern, sondern die Einheit des Gottesvolkes. Die Heimkehrer auf den Zion werden der Konzeption eines genealogisch begründeten Israel integriert. Abraham ist „euer Vater“. Das gilt allen, die zu Israel gehören. (2) Jes 51:1–8 akzentuiert nicht das Thema Land. An dessen Stelle ist—der Buchkonzeption Jes 40–55 entsprechend—der Zion getreten. Das Interesse an Abraham konzentriert sich vielmehr auf das Thema Mehrung. Mit dem Gegensatz zwischen einem und vielen ist im Kontext von Mehrung die lange Kinderlosigkeit der Ahneltern als Vergleichspunkt im Spiel. Sie verbindet das Paradigma der Erzeltern mit der Gegenwart des Textes. (3) Die Abfolge Berufung—Segnung—Mehrung erinnert locker an Gen 12:1–3. Allerdings fehlen in Jes 51 die Speziﬁka von Gen 12, doch steckt in jenem „Ruf“ eine Deutung von 12:1 im Sinne erwählender Berufung. Umgekehrt erscheint die Mehrungsverheißung mit einfachem rbh nicht in Gen 12, wohl aber in 17:2. Aus alledem folgt: (4) Jes 51 setzt priesterliches wie nichtpriesterliches Gut und damit eine schon elaborierte Abrahamüberlieferung voraus, die bereits die Unfruchtbarkeit Saras Gen 11:27–32, die mit dem „berufen“ 12:1–3 und mit dem „Garten JHWHs“ auch 13:10 enthalten hat.18 Mit Gottes Ruf, Segen und Mehrung greift das Stück Signalworte der Abrahamüberlieferung auf. Sie haben ihre Kraft nicht in der Vergangenheit erschöpft, sondern vergewissern Israel in nachexilischer Zeit19 der Nähe des Heils (V. 1 + 7). 18 Dabei stammt der erste Satz („als einen einzelnen habe ich ihn berufen“) aus 41:9aβ; denn dort fügt er sich ganz organisch in die Erwählungsterminologie ein: „ergriﬀen—gerufen—erwählt“. Jedoch konnten die Leser des redaktionellen Stückes Jes 51:1–8 den Ruf unschwer als Deutung vorliegender Abrahamüberlieferung, insbesondere von Gen 12:1, verstehen. „Garten JHWHs“ erscheint nur hier in 51:3 und in Gen 13:10, „Garten Elohims“ dagegen in Ez 28:13; 31:8–9. 19 Das Stück setzt mit den positiven Völkeraussagen in V. 4–5 die Gottesknechtslieder voraus (vgl. 42:1–4), hat in V. 3 das Jes-Buch im Blick (s. die Leitwörter „trösten“ 12:1; 40:1; 49:13; 51:3; 52:9; 66:13, „Freude und Wonne“ 12:3; 35:10; 51:3,11; 61:3) und steht in V. 2 motivlich und sachlich in enger Verbindung mit 54:1–3 (vgl. bes. h. yl Pil. in 51:2a mit h. yl Qal in 54:1b). Es gehört also zu einer sehr jungen Kompositionsebene des Jes-Buches. Ob man dabei bis ans Ende des 4. Jh. hinuntergehen muß, wie Steck vor-

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

111

Eng verwandt mit den Anspielungen auf die Erzeltern in Jes 51 ist die Bearbeitung von Jes 41:8–13.20 Von dem älteren sog. Heilsorakel heben sich V. 8b–9ab.21 … Same Abrahams, der mich liebt, den ich von den Enden der Erde ergriﬀen und von ihren Säumen gerufen habe. Ich sprach zu dir: Mein Knecht bist du! Ich habe dich erwählt und nicht verworfen.

Gegen die in II Jes sonst geläuﬁge parallele Anrede mit Jakob—Israel fügt zunächst ein hier auﬀälliges, weil singuläres drittes Kolon den „Samen Abrahams“ hinzu. Sodann entfaltet V. 9a die Erwählungsaussagen von V. 8a breit in Prosa. „Erwählung“ heißt: Gott hat dich von den Enden der Erde ergriﬀen22 und von ihren Säumen gerufen. Das aber gewinnt erst auf dem Hintergrund der Abraham-Analogie seine Schärfe. Wie Gott einst Abraham aus Ur in Chaldäa ergriﬀen und ins Land geführt hat, so ruft er jetzt die Nachkommenschaft Abrahams heraus. Schließlich wendet V. 9b die Abraham-Analogie auf die gegenwärtige Situation an. Dabei gebraucht die Bearbeitung Material aus V. 8a, fügt aber als entscheidenden Satz hinzu: „Nicht habe ich dich verworfen.“ Mit dem Wort „verworfen“ blitzt das Exil als Gottesgericht auf. Zugleich aber verbürgt Abraham die Gewissheit der Erwählung durch alles Gericht hindurch. Die Bearbeitung setzt gegenüber dem älteren Heilsorakel neue Akzente: (1) Sie macht in V. 9—wie schon 51:2—Abraham zur Deuteﬁgur für die weltweite Diaspora. Er wird zum ersten Heimkehrer aus der

schlägt (Der Abschluß der Prophetie im Alten Testament, BThSt 17 [Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1991], 80–83, 196), kann hier auf sich beruhen. 20 Die Einheit ist mit „Aber du …“ an die Gerichtsrede 41:1–4(5) und den Götzenfabrikationstext V. 6–7 angefügt. Da in V. 14–16 mit erneuter Anrede eine Fortschreibung (vgl. V. 14a mit V. 13b) folgt und V. 13 mit V. 10 einen mehrfachen Rahmen bildet, dürfte die ursprüngliche Einheit außer der Anrede V. 8a lediglich V. 10–13 umfasst haben. 21 V. 8b beurteilen auch G. Fohrer, „Zum Text von Jes XLI 8–13“, VT 5 (1955), 242, und J. v. Oorschot, Von Babel zum Zion. Eine literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Jesaja 40–55, BZAW 206 (Berlin, 1993), 54 Anm. 162, als sekundär, während R.P. Merendino, „Literarkritisches, Gattungskritisches und Exegetisches zu Jes 41,8–16“, Bib 53 (1972), 1–42, bes. 4–8, in V. 8aβ.9 einen Nachtrag sieht. Doch ist (gegen Merendino) die singuläre Verbindung von Israel und Same Abrahams kein Ausweis für literarische Ursprünglichkeit. 22 Damit nimmt der Bearbeiter V. 13a auf und deutet ihn sogleich um.

112

matthias köckert

Fremde und damit zum Vorbild für die Zerstreuten. Wie Gott den Ahn ergriﬀen und ins Land geführt hat, sollen nun diejenigen, die sich Abrahams Samen nennen, dem Ruf aus der Fremde in die Heimat folgen. (2) Die Bearbeitung spricht die Nachfahren der Exulanten ausdrücklich als Nachkommen Abrahams an. Damit beansprucht sie Abrahams Vaterschaft auch für die Gola von 587. Durch die Erweiterung mit V. 8b werden jedoch die Adressaten neu gedeutet. So erscheint jetzt der Gottesknecht Israel in seinen beiden Gestalten: die Nachfahren der exilierten Nordreichsbewohner von 722 und der judäischen Exulanten von 597 und 587 in ihren Ahnen Jakob und Abraham.23 (3) Die Erläuterung „Same Abrahams, der mich liebt“24 hebt des Erzvaters beispielhaftes Gottesverhältnis hervor. Der Tat Gottes („Jakob, den ich erwählt habe“) entspricht die Liebe des Ahn: „…Abraham, der mich liebt“.25 Die partizipiale Formulierung schließt im Ahn dessen Nachkommen ein.26 Dem entsprechen in der Sache die in 51:1a angeredeten Gottsucher, die „der Gerechtigkeit nachjagen“. (4) Was ist mit Abrahams Gottesliebe konkret gemeint? Der Zusammenhang mit Gottes Ruf lässt zunächst an Abrahams gehorsamen Aufbruch Gen 12:1.4a denken. Sodann legt sich ein Bezug auf Gen 22 nicht nur über 22:16, sondern vor allem über 22:2 nahe. Nur hier ist in der gesamten Abrahamüberlieferung von Abrahams Liebe die Rede, allerdings zu Isaak. Indes, hat nicht der Gottesliebe bewährt, der Gottes Weisung über die Liebe zu seinem Sohn stellt? Im Lichte von Dtn 5:10; 6:5; 7:9 u.a. erscheint Abraham unter dem Stichwort gehorsamer Gottesliebe vor allem als Täter der Tora. Im Horizont dieser Anrede stehen all die Texte und Bearbeitungen, die Abraham in den Konturen eines beispielhaften Torafrommen zeichnen. In Gen 18:6 beachtet er die Opfergesetze, indem er zur Speisung der himmlischen Gäste entsprechendes Mehl verwendet. In Gen 14:20 entrichtet er den Zehnten

23 Vgl. das Nebeneinander von Israel und Juda unter der Gesamtbezeichnung „Haus Jakobs“ in 48:1. 24 Eine ausführliche Diskussion der schwierigen Stelle führt P. Höﬀken, „Abraham und Gott, oder: wer liebt hier wen? Anmerkungen zu Jes 41,8“, BN 103 (2000), 17–22. 25 Die Deutung auf die Liebe Abrahams vertreten E. Jenni (THAT I [München, 1971], 71), J.L. Koole (Isaiah Part 3, Vol. I: Isaiah 40–48, HCOT [Kampen, 1997], 149ﬀ.), zuletzt P. Höﬀken (Anm. 24). 26 Das nächste Seitenstück für die auﬀällige Wendung „Same Abrahams, der mich liebt“ ﬁndet sich in II Chr 20:7. Das steckt den zeitlichen Rahmen ab, in den diese Bearbeitung gehört.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

113

an den Jerusalemer Priester. In Gen 24 beachtet er das Mischehenverbot. In 26:3b–5 schließlich erscheint er als vorbildlicher Frommer, der die gesamte Tora in all ihren Bestimmungen hält.27 Die in Jes 51 und 41 proﬁliert vertretene Konzeption eines in Abraham erwählten Israel, das seine Identität in seinem Ahn ﬁndet, hat jedoch in jenem großen Gebet Jes 63:7–64:11 entschiedenen Widerspruch erfahren. Es behaftet Gott bei seiner Ehre, indem es zu Beginn der Ruhmestaten Gottes gedenkt. Als ihr Kern und Stern steht die Bestimmung Israels zu Gottes Volk und zu seinen Söhnen an der Spitze (V. 8). Diesem Vater, nicht Abraham, verdankt es seine Rettung im Exodus. Auch der folgende Rückblick auf die „Tage der Vorzeit“ kommt völlig ohne die Erzväter aus und rekapituliert Gottes Führung beim Meerwunder und durch die Wüste (V. 11–14). Im Exodus ward Israel als Gottes Sohn geboren. Der Bitteil greift am Anfang und am Schluß in der Form eines Bekenntnisses ausdrücklich auf Gottes Selbstbestimmung zum Vater dieses Sohnes im Exodus zurück: Du bist unser Vater, „unser Erlöser“ ist vonUrzeit an dein Name (63:16). Herr, du bist unser Vater …, dein Volk sind wir alle (64:7.9).

Seine besondere Schärfe erhält das Bekenntnis dadurch, dass es in 63:16 ausdrücklich eine Vaterschaft Abrahams oder Jakob-Israels für das gegenwärtige Volk abweist: Du bist unser Vater; denn Abraham kennt uns nicht, und Israel weiß nichts von uns. Du, Herr, bist unser Vater, „unser Erlöser“ ist von Urzeit her dein Name.

Insofern setzt das Gebet die Bekanntschaft mit beiden Gründungstraditionen Israels voraus, mit den Erzvätern wie mit dem Exodus. Die Beter hier wissen zwar um ihre genealogische Herkunft von den Erzvätern, aber sie wollen nicht Abrahams Kinder, sondern fortan allein Gottes Kinder sein. Diese erstaunliche Negation richtet sich polemisch gegen 51:2 und 58:14 und damit gegen alle, die meinen, aus Abrahams (oder Jakobs) Vaterschaft Honig saugen zu können. Damit stellt sich

27 S. die Kumulation der verschiedenen Termini für das Gesetz und zur Sache zuletzt B. Ego, „Abraham als Urbild der Toratreue Israels“, in: F. Avemarie / H. Lichtenberger (Hg.), Bund und Tora, WUNT 92 (Tübingen, 1996), 25–40.

114

matthias köckert

das Gebet quer zur Hochschätzung, die Abraham in der Priesterschrift oder Jakob und Abraham im solennen Schluß des Michabuches 7:20 erfahren. Was hat die radikale Abkehr von den Erzvätern in Jes 63:16 veranlaßt? Das Gebet attestiert diesen Vätern Nutzlosigkeit angesichts der Lage der Beter. Diese Väter kennen ihre Söhne nicht und kümmern sich nicht um sie. Ja, mehr noch, sie können derlei gar nicht; denn im Blick auf die drückende Sündenmacht (64:6), die Gottes Zorn bewirkt, sind diese Väter völlig nutzlos. Deshalb appellieren die Söhne an den Exodusgott als ihren Vater, dessen Name und Wesen darin bestehen, „Erlöser“ zu sein. Dieses Wesen hat er „alle Tage der Vorzeit“ bewährt. Deshalb ist allein von „seiner Liebe und seinem Mitleid“ (63:9!) überhaupt noch etwas zu erwarten. Sollte das Gebet als Abschlusstext einer späten Gestalt des Jesajabuches konzipiert worden sein, wie O.H. Steck annimmt28, hätte die Betonung der Vaterschaft Gottes darüber hinaus ihre besondere Pointe gerade darin, dass diese Söhne mit ihrem Gebet das tun, was ihre Vorväter, die Söhne von Jes 1:2, partout nicht tun wollten. Dort klagt der himmlische Vater: Söhne habe ich großgezogen und hochgebracht, sie aber haben sich gegen mich aufgelehnt.

Deren Nachfahren bekennen jetzt: Du—und wir dürfen getrost hinzufügen: du allein—bist unser Vater! 1.3. Durchgesetzt hat sich diese Negation jeglicher Heilsbedeutung Abrahams freilich nicht. Durchgesetzt hat sich—wie so oft im Leben—die Integration. Zeugnisse dieser Integration ﬁnden wir außerhalb des Pentateuch in Neh 9, Jos 24 und Ps 105. Der Geschichtsrückblick im Bußgebet Neh 9, einem theologischen Reﬂexionstext, keinem im Kultus lebendigen Gebet29, bietet einen Abriß der Geschichte von der Weltschöpfung bis zum Exil und bis zu der 28 Studien zu Tritojesaja, BZAW 203 (Berlin, 1991), 233–241, mit der Ansetzung in die Ptolemäerzeit. Gegen eine exilische oder frühpersische Entstehung des Gebets und gegen seine Beheimatung in dtr. Kreisen sprechen sein Ort in der Komposition, seine Textbezüge und die theologisch singulären, ganz un-dtr. Aussagen 63:17; 64:4b,6b. 29 So m. R. schon A.H.J. Gunneweg, Nehemia, KAT XIX/2 (Berlin, 1987), 129: Das Volksklagelied sei „nicht dazu verfaßt, bei Bußtagen zur Auﬀührung zu kommen“. Er zählt es zu den „jüngsten Stücken des AT“.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

115

wenig erfreulichen Gegenwart. Es setzt dabei ziemlich detailliert nicht nur den Pentateuch, sondern auch das voraus, was man einst Enneateuch nannte.30 Die Erzväter werden auf Abraham allein reduziert (V. 7–8). Dabei fallen die Anspielungen auf junge und jüngste Stücke der Abrahamüberlieferung auf. Gott hat Abram erwählt31, „aus UrKasdim herausgeführt“ (Gen 15:7), ihm den Namen Abraham gegeben (17:5), „sein Herz als treu erfunden“ (vgl. n"mn mit 15:6) und ihm unverbrüchlich zugesagt, seinen Nachkommen das Land zu geben (15:1832). Der letzte Satz preist die Erfüllung der Landverheißung als Akt der Gerechtigkeit Gottes. Unmittelbar daran schließen sich das Elend „unserer Väter (!) in Ägypten“, die Plagen, der Exodus mit dem Meerwunder und die Führung durch die Wüste, ja, sogar die Sinaiereignisse mit der Gabe des Gesetzes an, das im Sabbatgebot als Hauptgebot gipfelt.33 Auﬀällig hart ist der Übergang von Abraham zum Ägyptenexodus. Joseph fehlt, und der Ortswechsel wird literarisch nicht vermittelt.34 Auch der den Exodusvätern gegebene Landverheißungseid in ezechielschem Sprachgewand (V. 15) wie dessen Erfüllung stehen merkwürdig unausgeglichen neben der Landgabe an Abrahams Nachkommen schon in V. 8b. Man wird das gar nicht anders deuten können, als dass selbst diese späte Verbindung beider Konzeptionen deren ursprüngliche literarische Selbständigkeit nicht verbergen kann. Im Dienste der Verbindung beider stehen zweifellos die Verlagerung des Themas Mehrung von Abraham weg auf die Landnahmegeneration (V. 23), die Vermeidung der Vaterbezeichnung bei Abraham, vielleicht auch die Reduktion der Erzväter auf Abraham. Von den Vätern im Plural ist in Neh 9 allein als von „unseren Vätern“ und das erst seit Ägypten die Rede.35 Auch Jos 24, ein nach-dtr. Text36, verbindet die Erzväter mit dem Exodus. Er vermittelt beide dadurch, dass er wie Neh 9 aus Abraham So bringen V. 24–25 Jos, V. 26–28 Jdc, V. 29–30 Sam—Reg auf den Punkt. Vielleicht deutet V. 7a so den Ruf Gottes noch außerhalb des Landes in Gen 12:1. Aber auch das Reﬂexionsstück Gen 18:17–19 wird von der Erwählungsaussage abgedeckt, die II Jes schon längst im Rücken hat. Vgl. dazu M. Köckert, „Die Erwählung Israels und das Ziel der Wege Gottes im Jesajabuch“, in: I. Kottsieper u. a. (Hg.), „Wer ist wie du, HERR, unter den Göttern?“, FS O. Kaiser (Göttingen, 1994), 277–300. 32 S. auch die allerdings gegenüber 15:20–21 reduzierte Völkerliste. 33 Vgl. M. Köckert, Leben in Gottes Gegenwart. Studien zum Gesetzesverständnis im Alten Testament, FAT (Tübingen, 2004), 139–151. 34 Darauf hat Th. Römer (Anm. 10), 540, m. R. aufmerksam gemacht. 35 Th. Römer (Anm. 10), 541. 36 Zur literargeschichtlichen Einordnung von Jos 24 s. E. Blum, „Der kompositio30 31

116

matthias köckert

einen Einwanderer macht. Indem er den Zug Jakobs und seiner Söhne nach Ägypten aus Gen 46 aufnimmt, schaﬀt er einen erzählerischen Übergang zum Ägyptenexodus (ab V. 5). Ungewöhnlich ist die Einbeziehung der Vorväter Abrahams in die Reihe „eurer Väter“ in V. 2. Die aber werden ausdrücklich vom Vater Abraham durch die Bemerkung abgesetzt, dass sie fremden Göttern dienten. So erscheinen mit den „Vätern jenseits des Stroms“ in V. 2.14 die Gefährdungen der Diaspora. Ein Glossator greift mit der Erwähnung Tärachs in V. 2 die priesterliche Genealogie Gen 11:27 ﬀ. auf.37 Vers 3 erzählt davon, dass Gott „euren Vater, Abraham, von jenseits des Stromes nahm“, und deutet so Gen 12:1 mit der Brille von Gen 24:7 (lqh. ). Die Fortsetzung in V. 3 fasst die beiden Einwanderungen und mehrfachen Ortsveränderungen in Gen 12–13 in einem Satz zusammen: „… ich ließ ihn im ganzen Land Kanaan umherziehen.“38 Schließlich scheint die abschließende Mehrungsnotiz die Geburt Ismaels vor Isaak und wohl auch die Listen in Gen 25:1–6,12–18 sowie die Formulierung der Mehrungsverheißung aus Gen 16:10 zu kennen. Zwar integriert auch Ps 105 die Erzväter in einem Geschichtsrückblick, der bis zur Landgabe reicht und den Aufriß des Pentateuch einschließlich der Erzählungen von Joseph, den Plagen, von Manna und Wachteln sowie vom Wasser aus dem Felsen voraussetzt.39 Aus der Väterüberlieferung spielt dieser Psalm in V. 12–15 vor allem auf die Erzählung von der Preisgabe der Ahnfrau an, und zwar in ihren unterschiedlichen Versionen. Nur so erklären sich V. 13 („sie zogen von Volk zu Volk“) und der Plural („er rügte Könige ihretwegen“)40, sowie verschiedene Stichwortbezüge, die vor allem Kenntnis von Gen 20; 21

nelle Knoten am Übergang von Josua zu Richter. Ein Entﬂechtungsvorschlag“, in: Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature. FS Brekelmans, BETL 133 (Leuven, 1997), 181–212, und R.G. Kratz, „Der vor- und der nachpriesterschriftliche Hexateuch“, in: J. Chr. Gertz u. a. (Hg.), Abschied vom Jahwisten. Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, BZAW 315 (Berlin, 2002), 295–324, bes. 299–307. Von den schon lange aufgefallenen Berührungen mit Neh 9 (s. Th. Römer [Anm. 10], 327 mit Lit.) sind die Völkerliste (Jos 24:11 / Neh 9:8), die Feinde als Könige (24:12 / 9:22,24) und die Immobilienliste (24:13 / 9:25) bes. signiﬁkant. 37 So schon H. Holzinger, Josua, KHC VI (Tübingen, 1901), 97, mit Hinweis auf die Spannung zwischen den Vätern und der Nennung allein Tärachs. 38 Vielleicht liegt hier aber auch ein präziser Bezug auf die Gottesrede 13:14–17 vor. Dafür könnte die Aufnahme der Wurzel hlk sprechen, die in 13:17 im Hitp., in Jos 24:3 im Hif. gebraucht wird. 39 Allerdings erwähnen Ps 105 wie Jos 24 den Sinai nicht. 40 So auch E. Blum (Anm. 5), 410, Anm. 17.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

117

und 26 verraten.41 Die Integration von Väter- und Exodusüberlieferung wird in Ps 105 jedoch dadurch bewirkt, dass die gesamte Geschichte des Volkes als Produkt des Gedenkens Gottes an seinen „Bund mit Abraham“ erscheint (vgl. V. 8 mit V. 42). Der Bund mit Abraham steht in V. 8 parallel zum Eid für Isaak (vgl. Gen 26:3) und kann deshalb hier nichts anderes als in Gen 15:18 bedeuten: verbindliche Zusage, eben „Verheißung“.42 Die bezieht sich auf die Landgabe, wie V. 11 ausführt. So erscheint die Landverheißung an die Erzväter, insbesondere an Abraham, als der entscheidende Motor der Geschichte.43 Integrieren Neh 9 und Jos 24 die Erzväter in die Exodus-Volksgeschichte durch eine mehr oder weniger vermittelte Vorschaltung der Väter vor das Volk, so schließt Ps 105 umgekehrt das Volk in die Väter, insbesondere in Abraham ein.44 2. Die Komposition der Abrahamerzählung Gen 11:27–25:11 In einer einfühlsamen narrativen Analyse hat J.L. Ska auf die eigentümlich episodische Kompositionsweise des Abrahamzyklus hingewiesen.45 Der Erzählzyklus lässt sich—anders als die Jakoberzählung— nicht als Lösung eines Konﬂikts begreifen; denn er besteht aus einer Anreihung oftmals nur lose verbundener Erzählungen oder Szenen. 41 Vgl. V. 12 mit Gen 34:30. gwr aus V. 12 erinnert an Gen 12:10; 20:1; 21:23,34. ykh. aus V. 14 begegnet—wenn auch in anderem Sinne—in Gen 20:16 (Abimelek zu Abraham) und 21:25 (Abraham zu Abimelek); vgl. auch 31:42 (über Gott). ng‘ aus V. 15 erinnert an Gen 20:6; 26:11, nby" aus V. 15 an Gen 20:7. Außerdem könnte die Bezeichnung der Erzväter als „Gesalbte“ durch die Kenntnis von Gen 17:6 angeregt sein. 42 Vgl. in V. 42: „Er gedachte seines heiligen Wortes …“ 43 Deren Formulierung stellt freilich ein sehr apartes Mischgebilde der Spätzeit dar: „Dir gebe ich das Land Kanaan, den Anteil eures Erbbesitzes.“ Der traditionelle Gabesatz wird hier mit dem Sprachgebrauch von P verbunden („Land Kanaan“ statt „dieses Land“). Die Wendung „Anteil eures Erbbesitzes“ setzt einen völlig singulären Akzent und greift vielleicht die Vorstellung von der Landverlosung (nach-P) aus Jos auf. 44 Das wird nicht nur am Gedenken Gottes an den Bund mit Abraham deutlich, sondern auch am auﬀälligen Wechsel von Abraham zu Abrahams Samen in V. 11: „Dir gebe ich das Land Kanaan“ zum „Anteil eures (!) Erbbesitzes.“ Im Ahn sind die Nachfahren (vgl. V. 6) schon einbegriﬀen. I Chr 16 zitiert den Psalm, allerdings mit bezeichnenden Retuschen. Dazu gehört auch die Ersetzung des „Samen Abrahams“ durch „Same Israels (V. 13)—wohl um Ismael auszuschließen. 45 J.L. Ska, „Essai sur la nature et la signiﬁcation du cycle d’Abraham (Gn 11,27– 25,11)“, in: A. Wénin (Hg.), Studies in the Book of Genesis, BETL 155 (Leuven, 2001), 153– 178.

118

matthias köckert

Zusammengehalten werden die Episoden von den beiden Themen, die auch in Ez 33:24 und Jes 51 fundamental sind: das Land und die Nachkommen. Beide werden von Anfang an so miteinander verbunden, dass das Land den Nachkommen zugesprochen wird.46 Die aus 12:1 erwachsene Frage nach dem Land ist, einmal in Kanaan angekommen, mit dem Hinweis auf „dieses Land“ in 12:7 und spätestens mit dem Rundblick 13:14 ﬀ. geklärt. Die Frage nach den Nachkommen aber bleibt oﬀen. Zunächst stellen sich keine Nachkommen ein, dann aber gibt es mehrere Konkurrenten. Die Erzählspannung erwächst also am Thema Nachkommen, nicht am Thema Land. So wird in immer neuen Anläufen durchgespielt, wer der legitime Erbe sei, dem „dieses Land“ rechtens zukommt. Das war in der Königszeit noch kein Thema, wird aber eines in der Perserzeit. Als erste verlassen Lot und mit ihm Moab und Ammon das Land, darauf folgen Hagar mit Ismael und zuletzt die Söhne der Ketura. Am Ende heißt es in 25:5: „Und Abraham gab alles, was er hatte, Isaak.“ Dabei liegen freilich Lot und seine Söhne auf einer anderen literarischen Ebene; denn sie sind—anders als Ismael—keine Nachkommen Abrahams. Der geographische Aufriß47 gliedert den Erzählzyklus in drei Teile. Der erste Teil (11:27–19:38 + 21:1–7) führt Abraham und Lot von UrKasdim nach Hebron (13:18; 18) und Sodom (13:12b; 19). Er zielt auf die Geburt von Moab und Ammon (19:30–38) und von Isaak (21:1– 7). Sein Kern besteht aus dem, was H. Gunkel als „Sagenkranz“ von Abraham und Lot bezeichnet hat und E. Blum die „Abraham-LotErzählung“ nennt.48 Aus diesem Erzählbogen fallen Gen 14–17 heraus. Sie unterbrechen ihn und tragen neue Themen ein. Außerdem sind sie von anderen Interessen geleitet. Zwar gehören Abraham und Lot auch zum Personal von Gen 14, sie spielen aber dort ein ganz anderes Stück. Gen 14–17 stammen jedoch nicht von einer Hand. Das verbietet schon der doppelte Bundesschluß in 15 und 17, die beide 16 voraussetzen.49 Auch Gen 12 geht über die Abraham-Lot-Erzählung hinaus und 46 Gen 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 24:7. Zu den verschiedenen Formulierungen der Landverheißung s. R. Rendtorﬀ, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch, BZAW 147 (Berlin, 1977), 42–45. Allerdings sollte man aus den beiden Belegen, in denen das Land nur „dir“ (13:17; 15:7), nicht „deinen Nachkommen“ zugesprochen wird, keine voreiligen Schlüsse ziehen; denn beide Male ist mit dem Ahn das Volk gemeint. 47 Vgl. auch J.P. Fokkelman, „Time and the Structure of the Abraham Cycle“, OTS 25 (1989), 96–109, und K.A. Deurloo, „Narrative Geography in the Abraham Cycle“, OTS 26 (1990), 48–62. 48 H. Gunkel, Genesis, HKAT (3. Auﬂ. Göttingen, 1910), 159; E. Blum (Anm. 5), 273. 49 Die Plazierung von 15 erfolgt mit Bedacht vor 16, weil Abrahams Argumentation

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

119

verfolgt andere Interessen. Während deren Horizont im Abrahamzyklus selbst liegt, greift Gen 12 mit Sichem (V. 7) und Bethel (V. 8) die Jakobüberlieferung auf. Sodann schlägt die erste Gottesrede mit dem Stichwort „großes Volk“ in 12:1–3 einen weiten Bogen nach 46:1–4. Schließlich wirkt der doppelte Eishodos Abrahams aus Mesopotamien und aus Ägypten wie eine „Exodusprolepse“ Israels.50 So lassen schon wenige Einblicke in den ersten Teil der Komposition eine recht komplizierte Entstehungsgeschichte vermuten. Dabei verlangt vor allem die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Gen 15 zu 17 eine Antwort. Außerdem bedarf die Einbindung der Hagar-Erzählung Gen 16 der Klärung. Der zweite Teil (20:1–22:19) wechselt den Schauplatz und führt Abraham zunächst nach Gerar und von dort nach Beerscheba.51 Die Stücke dieses Teils bilden aufgrund einer gewissen inneren Verknüpfung und verschiedener Eigentümlichkeiten eine Gruppe für sich.52 Sie haben— bis auf Gen 22—Dubletten in Gen 12 und 26. Dabei erweisen sich die Fassungen in 20 und 21 als die jüngeren Versionen. Deshalb erscheinen Gen 20–22 geradezu wie eine „bearbeitete Neuauﬂage“ in stark veränderter Gestalt.53 Nach älterem Gut kann man allenfalls in den Nachrichten über die Geburt Isaaks in 21:1–7 suchen. Sie sind es auch gewesen, über die jene Bearbeiter ihre neue Sicht des Erzvaters mit dem ersten Teil verbunden haben. Gen 20–22 sind jedoch nicht in einem Zug entstanden. Das ergibt sich schon aus dem Ort der Geburtsnotizen. Sie unterbrechen die beiden Episoden von Abraham in Gerar. Der zweite Teil wird mit dem ersten nicht nur durch die Geburtsnotizen verschränkt. Beide Teile sind auch dadurch verbunden, dass sich Anspielungen auf Jerusalem nur hier ﬁnden: mit Salem in 14:18–20 und mit Morija in 22:254. in 15:2 ﬀ. nach 16 haltlos wäre; und Gen 17 berücksichtigt in V. 18,22,23,25–27 ausdrücklich Ismael. 50 H. Gese, „Die Komposition der Abrahamüberlieferung“, in: ders., Alttestamentliche Studien (Tübingen, 1991), 29–51: „Abraham nimmt das Exoduserleben Israels vorweg. Auf die Jakobprolepse folgt die Exodusprolepse“ (S. 35). 51 Beerscheba wird für Abraham durch 21:14 nahegelegt. Abrahams Besitzrecht ist Ziel von 21:22–34. Außerdem kehrt Abraham mit seinem Sohn nach den Ereignissen von Gen 22 dorthin zurück (22:19). 52 R. Kessler hat sie „Negev-Gruppe“ genannt und ihre Besonderheiten beschrieben (Die Querverweise im Pentateuch, [Diss. Masch. Heidelberg, 1972], 80–92). 53 Darin liegt die particula veri der klassischen Vermutung eines „Elohisten“ (Wellhausen) oder wenigstens „elohistischer Fragmente“ (Westermann). 54 Vgl. II Chr 3:1 und Gen 22:14b mit Ps 84:8.

120

matthias köckert

Der dritte Teil (22:20–25:11) lokalisiert die Erzeltern wieder in Hebron. Zwei Erzählbögen bestimmen ihn. Der erste schließt die Erzählungen über Abraham und Sara ab, indem er von deren Tod und Begräbnis berichtet (23 und 25:7–11). Der zweite lenkt den Blick auf die nächste Generation. Dem ordnet sich die Liste der Nahoriden in 22:20–24 ein. Sie bereitet die in ihren Dimensionen singuläre Erzählung Gen 24 vor. Die präsentiert zwar Abraham als exemplarischen Torafrommen, leitet aber schon zu Isaak über. Auch hier sind beide Erzählbögen ineinander geschoben. Dabei setzt der zweite Bogen mit der Anspielung auf Isaak als Herrn in 24:65 den Tod Abrahams, mit der Schlußnotiz 24:67 den Tod Saras und damit Gen 23 und 25:8–9 voraus. Daraus ergibt sich die Frage, ob sich eine nach-priesterliche Herkunft aus Gen 24 selbst erhärten läßt. Gen 25:1–6 schließlich entfernen die erst hier eingeführten Söhne der Ketura als potentielle Miterben aus dem Land. So steht am Ende fest, wer allein als legitimer Erbe des Landes in Frage kommt: Isaak, der einzige Nachkomme Abrahams und Saras. 3. Zur Literargeschichte der Abrahamerzählung Ein Gesamtbild der Literargeschichte von Gen 11:27–25:11 kann in diesem Rahmen nicht mehr als eine Skizze in relativ groben Strichen sein. Auch ist der Grad der Wahrscheinlichkeit im einzelnen höchst unterschiedlich. Das liegt in der Natur der Sache; denn die einst lebendige Literargeschichte hat sich noch nie nach den Brüsseler Normen für Denkmalpﬂege gerichtet und jede Veränderung säuberlich dokumentiert. Rekonstruieren muß man die Geschichte bekanntlich immer, und derlei geht nicht ohne Vermutungen und Hypothesen. 3.1. Relativ sicheren Boden betreten wir mit der Annahme einer AbrahamLot-Erzählung in Gen 13 + 18–19. Schon die Analyse der Komposition legt nahe, hier das älteste Stratum der Abrahamüberlieferung zu vermuten.55 Sie ist in Hebron lokalisiert und also judäischer Provenienz.56 Zu ihr gehören: … 13:2abα,5,7–11a; 18:1b–16,20–22a,33b; 19* … Hebron war judäische „Königsstadt“ vor Jerusalem (II Sam 2:1–4; 5:1–5; 15:7,9). Schon der schlichte Befund, dass Hebron in babylonischer und persischer Zeit nicht zur Provinz Jehud gehörte, spricht gegen eine späte Ansetzung der Erzählung. 55 56

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

121

Sie erzählt die Ursprungsgeschichte Judas in seinem Ahnpaar Abraham und Sara und klärt dabei das Verhältnis Judas zu den östlichen Nachbarn der Eisenzeit. In ihrem ersten Teil (Gen 13) geht es um den Besitz des Landes, das Abraham selbstverständlich zufällt, weil Lot— das Paradies Sodom vor Augen—das Land verlässt. Der zweite Teil (Gen 18–19) thematisiert die Nachkommen. Beide Themen entsprechen dem, was Ez 33:24 und Jes 51 voraussetzen. Weil der Ursprung von Völkern, genealogischem Denken gemäß, nur als Familiengeschichte erzählt werden kann, muß das Thema Nachkommen in der Gestalt der Kinder der Ahnen erscheinen. Während Abrahams Nachkommen sich einem Gastgeschenk Himmlischer verdanken, gehen Moab und Ammon aus einem Inzest hervor. Damit sind die Verhältnisse geklärt: Die einen stehen im Dunkel der Höhle über einem Toten Meer, die andern im Licht des Tages, der lachen lässt. Problematisch sind Anfang und Abschluß der Erzählung. Der Abschluß könnte vielleicht noch in 21:1a,2*,7 verarbeitet sein. Jedoch wird der in 18:14b angekündigte Besuch in Gen 21 nicht berichtet.57 Sehr viel schwerer lässt sich die Frage nach dem Anfang beantworten. Mit E. Blum gehe ich davon aus, dass der ursprüngliche Beginn später durch Gen 12 ersetzt worden ist.58 Noch in der Königszeit entstand die Hagar-Erzählung Gen 16.59 Sie schreibt das Verhältnis zu den unter „Ismael“ zusammengefassten proto-beduinischen Stämmen in die Abrahamüberlieferung ein. Diese Stämmekonföderation wird in den assyrischen Quellen als sumu"il nur im ausgehenden 8. und im 7. Jh. erwähnt.60 Wann Gen 16 in den Abrahamzyklus eingebunden wurde, lässt sich nicht mehr sicher sagen.61 Sollte die Hagar-Erzählung unmittelbar in die Abraham-Lot-Erzäh57 Vielleicht steckt in dem lmw #d von 21:2b ein Rückbezug auf 18:14b, vgl. aber 21:2 mit 17:21! 58 E. Blum (Anm. 5), 282–286. Ein Beginn mit 12:10–20, wie I. Fischer, Die Erzeltern Israels, BZAW 222 (Berlin, 1994), 339, und Th. Römer, „Recherches actuelles sur le cycle d’Abraham“, in: A. Wénin (Hg.), Studies in the Book of Genesis, BETL 155 (Leuven, 2001), 179–211, 193, vorschlagen, empﬁehlt sich nicht, weil diese Erzählung aus dem Erzählbogen Gen … 13; 18–19 herausführt und das Übel einer fehlenden Exposition für Lot nicht beheben kann. 59 Sie umfasste ursprünglich Gen 16:1–2,4–7a,8,11–12,(15?). 60 E.A. Knauf, Ismael. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Palästinas und Nordarabiens im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr., ADPV (2. Auﬂ. Wiesbaden, 1989), 1–9. 61 S. einerseits E. Blum (Anm. 5), 339–340, und D. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis. Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville, 1996), 194 („proto-Genesis“), anderseits R.G. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments. Grundwissen der Bibelkritik (Göttingen, 2000), 277 f. („nachjahwistisch … wenn nicht nachpriesterschriftlich“).

122

matthias köckert

lung eingeschoben worden sein, verstärkt und problematisiert sie das Thema Nachkommenschaft. Für eine vorexilische Einbindung spricht auch der im Stile von Stammessprüchen formulierte V. 12; denn er hat mit den „Brüdern“, denen sich Ismael „vor die Nase setzt“, die ostjordanischen Königtümer vor Augen. Außerdem setzt Gen 17 eine wie auch immer geartete Hagar-Ismael-Erzählung voraus.62 3.2. Frühestens nach dem Untergang Samarias 720 v. Chr., sicher aber nach 587, adaptierte man im Süden die ehedem selbständige Jakob-Erzählung und stellte ihr die Abraham-Lot-Erzählung voran. Als Bindeglied fungiert die Gestalt Isaak, Abrahams Sohn und Vater Jakobs. Es spricht manches dafür, dass man zur Verbindung der Abraham- mit der JakobErzählung Gen 26* wenn nicht geschaﬀen, so doch als literarische Brücke eingeschaltet hat.63 Die aber greift am Anfang ausdrücklich auf 12:10–20 zurück. Gewöhnlich erklärt man diese Rückbezüge für sekundär oder diese Version der Ahnfrau-Erzählung für die jüngste64. Doch lassen sich die Bezüge auch als Hinweise darauf lesen, dass 12:10–20 und 26* von einer Hand in die durch Isaak vereinigte Abraham-JakobErzählung eingebracht worden sind. Damit ist die Möglichkeit einer selbständigen Vorgeschichte hier wie dort nicht ausgeschlossen. Nun sind in Gen 12:10–20 schon lange mehrere Anspielungen auf den Exodus aufgefallen.65 Die Ahnfrau-Erzählung in dieser Ausrichtung spielt oﬀenbar auf die im Nordreich gepﬂegte Exodustradition an. Darin liegt die besondere Pointe jener Einschaltung. Als weiteres Bindeglied kommen die Wandernotizen in 12,6–8 in Betracht.66 S. bes. 17:16a,18b,20. Allerdings ohne die ausgreifenden Verheißungsreden 26:3b–5,24. 64 So vor allem J. v. Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven—London, 1975), 167–191. 65 Der Ägyptenaufenthalt wird durch eine Hungersnot veranlasst (vgl. Gen 46), Gott sucht den Pharao mit Schlägen heim (vgl. 12:17 mit Ex 11:1), die Israeliten gewinnen Vieh und Güter (vgl. 12:16 mit Ex 11:2 f.; 12:32,35,38) und werden am Ende entlassen, bzw. fortgejagt (vgl. 12:17,20 mit Ex 5:1f.; 11:1; 12:32 f.). Vgl. H. Gunkel (Anm. 48), 173, B. Jacob, Das erste Buch der Tora. Genesis (Berlin, 1934), 356, E. Blum (Anm. 5), 309f., und s. o. Anm. 48. 66 So fragt auch J.L. Ska, ob nicht 12:6ﬀ. als vor-priesterlicher Anfang der Abrahamerzählung angesehen werden könne („L’appel d’Abraham et l’acte de naissance d’Israel. Genèse 12,1–4a“, in: M. Vervenne / J. Lust [Hg.], Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature. FS Brekelmans, BETL 133 [Leuven, 1997], 367–390, 371). 62 63

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

123

Sie zeichnen Abraham durchaus als autochthon und bringen ihn mit den entscheidenden Stationen Jakobs in Verbindung (mit Sichem und Bethel). Angesichts der Lage nach 720 hat es seinen guten Sinn, wenn in Sichem mit „diesem (!) Land“ das Gebiet des ehemaligen Nordreichs der „Nachkommenschaft Abrahams“ zugesprochen wird.67 Jenes leider nicht mehr komplett erhaltene Initium greift bewusst Nordreichtraditionen auf, besetzt sie aber jetzt mit Abraham und verleibt sie so Juda ein. Gegen eine Ansetzung von 12:6–8 in die Königszeit sprechen jedoch die Notizen vom Bau der Altäre, auf denen bezeichnenderweise nicht geopfert wird.68 Sie berücksichtigen damit die Doktrin des Deuteronomium. Da sie sich literarkritisch nicht herauslösen lassen und da überdies die Wandernotizen den Aufbruchbefehl von 12:1 voraussetzen, wird es wohl bei einer Ansetzung nach 587 bleiben müssen.69 3.3. Es ist wahrscheinlich die Priesterschrift gewesen, die erstmals die bis dahin selbständige Erzählung vom Ursprung Israels in den Vätern mit der vom Exodus zu einer ‚Geschichte‘ verbunden hat. Dabei hebt sie in der Vätergeschichte vor allem Abraham hervor und zeichnet ihn mit jener programmatischen Gottesrede Gen 17 aus. Bei der Integration der vor-priesterlichen Vätererzählung in die Priesterschrift gibt diese mit den Toledot den Rahmen vor. Daraus erwachsen die bekannten Schwierigkeiten bei der Rekonstruktion des vor-priesterlichen Anfangs der Abrahamerzählung. Gen 12:1–4a hat ihn verdrängt. Das Stück wurde als Portal für die gesamte Vätererzählung geschaffen. Es beginnt abrupt ohne jede Exposition und lässt sich nur verstehen, wenn man die Informationen kennt, die 11:27–32 bieten.70 So spricht schon seine literarische Natur und der gegebene Kontext für einen nach-priesterlichen Einsatz. Die Verheißungsinhalte stammen aus der Königsideologie, gelten aber hier im Ahn dem Volk.71 Eine derartige Übertragung ist erst nach dem Untergang des Königtums denk67 Das widerspricht den Schlussfolgerungen aus Ez 33:24 keineswegs; denn dort geht es um Juda, für das es in der älteren Abraham-Lot-Erzählung keine Verheißung gibt. 68 Von „Kultgründungen“ sollte man besser nicht sprechen. 69 E. Blum (Anm. 5), 331 ﬀ., M. Köckert, Vätergott und Väterverheißungen, FRLANT 142 (Göttingen, 1988), 263 f., 294–299. 70 Gegen einen ursprünglichen Anschluß an 11:1–8a (so R.G. Kratz [Anm. 61], 266) spricht der unterschiedliche Gebrauch von "rs. in 11:8 (= „Erde“) und 12:1 (= „Land“). 71 M. Köckert (Anm. 69), 276–293.

124

matthias köckert

bar. Das widerrät einer Ansetzung noch in die Königszeit. Die Vorstellung einer in Völker, Sippen und Länder gegliederten Menschheit entspricht der priesterlichen Völkertafel in Gen 10:5,20,31 f. und— bis zu einem gewissen Grade—der persischen Reichsidee. Der komplizierte Befund legt zwei Lösungsmöglichkeiten nahe. Entweder setzen 12:1–3 die Toledot 11:27–32 (P) voraus, aus denen sich kein vorpriesterliches Gut isolieren läßt. Oder 11:27–32 sind bei der Einarbeitung des nicht-priesterlichen Bestandes in P auf 12:1–4a zugeschnitten worden.72 Im ersten Falle wären 12:1–4a nach-priesterlich, im zweiten dagegen wenigstens 11:28–30. Nach der sorgfältigen Untersuchung von J.L. Ska73 hat die erste Lösung m.E. die größere Wahrscheinlichkeit, weil sie mit weniger Annahmen auskommt. Allerdings muß man dann die Schwierigkeit in Kauf nehmen, dass 12:1–3 und die damit zusammenhängenden Verheißungen (s. u.) kaum Spuren in Ex—Num hinterlassen haben. Mit 12:1–3 sind aber 13:14–17 aufs engste verbunden74; denn erst dort zeigt Gott Abraham das Land, das zu zeigen er ihm in 12:1 versprochen hatte. Die Verheißungen in Gen 13:14–17 stehen wiederum mit denen von 28:13b–14 in Kontakt.75 Anderseits bilden alle göttlichen Wanderungs- und Rückkehrbefehle, jeweils mit Verheißungen motiviert, ein Netz von Verweisen über die gesamte Vätererzählung: 12:1– 4a; 26:2aβ–3; 31:3,13; 46:1b–5a. Erst auf dieser Ebene erscheinen die verheißenden Gottesreden als verbindendes Ferment. Schon der Beginn 11:27–13:18 macht aus Abraham den ersten Einwanderer aus Mesopotamien und damit zum Vorbild für die Gola, wie ihn auch Jes 51 und 41:8b–9 zeichnen. Die dort formulierte gesamtisraelitische Perspektive wird im Zielpunkt jenes doppelten Eishodos aus Mesopotamien und aus Ägypten geographisch realisiert; denn jener künstliche Ort zwischen Ai und Bethel (12:8 und 13:3–4) muß sich nach den Grenzbeschreibungen im Josuabuch auf der Grenze zwischen Israel und Juda beﬁnden (Jos 16:1–3; 18:12–13). Dort, also in der Mitte des Landes, zeigt Gott Abraham das Land, das ihm und seinen Nachfahren für immer gehören soll.

72 So beurteilt R.G. Kratz Gen 11:28–30 als „Zusatz zu P“ (Anm. 61), 266. Jedoch sehe ich dafür keine durchschlagenden literarkritischen Kriterien. 73 J.L. Ska (Anm. 66), 367–390. 74 M. Köckert (Anm. 69), 250–255. 75 Vgl. die kontextbezogenen Partizipialsätze in der Landverheißung und das Motiv der vier Himmelsrichtungen.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

125

3.4. In nachexilischer Zeit kommen unterschiedliche theologische Strömungen mit ihren Anliegen in der Abrahamerzählung zu Wort. Sie setzen alle, wenn auch auf verschiedene Weise, die Priesterschrift voraus. Allerdings liegen sie m. E. nicht auf einer literarischen Ebene. (1) Zunächst bilden jene Stücke in Gen 20–22 eine Erzählkette, die literarisch eng mit der Geburt Isaaks verwoben ist76; denn nach der Geburt Isaaks muß das Verhältnis beider Söhne geklärt werden. Die Erzählungen von der Preisgabe Ismaels (21) und Isaaks (22) sind, bei allen Unterschieden im einzelnen, durch mehrere Querverweise verbunden.77 Beide kreisen um die Gefährdung des Erben, zunächst durch den zuerst geborenen Ismael, sodann durch Gott selbst. Die Vertreibung Ismaels war der Priesterschrift oﬀenbar noch unbekannt; denn in 25:9, wird Abraham von seinen beiden Söhnen begraben. Gen 22 verrät im Gebrauch der literarischen Mittel und in der Problemstellung eine überraschende Nähe zur Hiob-Rahmenerzählung, in manchen Formulierungen zum Chronisten.78 (2) Ganz andere Interessen leiten sodann die Erzählung vom Aufenthalt Abrahams bei Abimelek von Gerar (20; 21:22–34). Ihr erster Teil wurde vor die Geburt Isaaks gestellt, weil für ihn die Kinderlosigkeit Saras konstitutiv ist.79 Die Ahnfrau-Erzählung in Gen 20 weist in 20:13 ausdrücklich auf 12:1 zurück und setzt die Ahnfrau-Erzählung von Gen 12 voraus. Sie führt am Ahn beispielhaft vor Augen, dass es Gottesfurcht auch im Ausland gibt und dass in der Diaspora ein gesichertes Leben trotz mancher Widrigkeiten möglich ist; denn Israels Gott lenkt auch in der Diaspora die Geschicke, und selbst unter Heiden gibt es Gerechte (20:4).

76 Dabei setzen 21:8ﬀ. nicht nur 21:1–7, sondern auch 16:1–15 voraus. 21:8 führt mit dem Artikel „das Kind“ V. 7 fort, der Relativsatz in V. 9 setzt Kap. 16 voraus. Der Name Ismael fällt nicht ein einziges Mal; der Leser trägt ihn aus 16 ein. Auch setzt der Rechtsfall, dass der Sohn Hagars erbberechtigt ist, Umstände voraus, die nur in 16:2 erzählt werden. Überdies entsprechen 21:11–13 auﬀällig 17:18–20. 77 Vgl. 21:14 mit 22:3; 21:17 mit 22:11; 21:19 mit 22:13 und dazu E. Blum (Anm. 5), 314 und 330. 78 T. Veijola, „Das Opfer des Abraham—Paradigma des Glaubens aus dem nachexilischen Zeitalter“, ZThK 85 (1988), 150ﬀ., weist darüber hinaus auf die Vorstellung von der Prüfung eines Einzelmenschen (sonst nur noch in II Chr 32:31), auf Morija (II Chr 3:1) u. a. hin. 79 Zur ursprünglichen Verbindung beider Teile s. schon H. Gunkel (Anm. 48), 233.

126

matthias köckert

(3) Die Formulierung in 20:4 („Herr willst du denn auch ein gerechtes Volk umbringen?“) verrät Bekanntschaft mit der Diskussion Abrahams um die Gerechtigkeit Gottes angesichts der Zerstörung Sodoms in 18:22b–33a.80 Diese Diskussion erwächst wiederum aus der Einsetzung Abrahams zum Lehrer der Tora in 18:17–19.81 So dürfte die zweiteilige Erzählung von Abraham, dem Diasporajuden, im Ausland bei Abimelek von Gerar das jüngste dieser Stücke sein. 3.5. Im Horizont des Pentateuch stehen die Eintragungen des Väterschwures in 22:15–18 und 26:3b–5,24. Sie schlagen einen großen Bogen zu Dtn 34:4. Bezieht man dazu noch 50:24 ein, kommt sogar Jos 24:32 und damit der Hexateuch in den Blick. Von den verbleibenden Texten greife ich jetzt nur noch Gen 15 und 24 auf. Die ausufernde Erzählung Gen 24 hat in den V. 5–7 schon 11:27 ﬀ. und 12:1 im Rücken. Sie ist ganz von der Bewahrung des Exogamieverbots geprägt (V. 2–4). Übergeordnet ist ihm allerdings das Gebot, im Lande zu bleiben, wie der Knecht auf seine Rückfrage in V. 5– 8 erfährt. Gen 24 vertritt also die Gegenposition zu Gen 20. Die in der Frage des Knechts formulierte Alternative hatte einen Lebensbezug erst, nachdem es eine Diaspora mit Anziehungskraft gab. Schon deshalb muß man mit der Ansetzung weit in die Perserzeit hinuntergehen. A. Rofé hat m. E. überzeugend die nachexilische Herkunft dieser Erzählung begründet und darüber hinaus zeigen können, dass sie Gen 17 aufgreift. In 24:40 zitiert der Knecht Abraham mit den Worten: „… der Herr, vor dem ich wandle …“ Das ﬁndet sich im Buche Genesis nur noch in der Gottesrede 17:1: „Wandle vor mir und sei untadelig!“82 Abraham erscheint in Gen 24 als Vorbild wahrer Frömmigkeit.

80 Zum Verständnis des Textes s. bes. L. Schmidt, „De Deo“. Studien zur Literarkritik und Theologie des Buches Jona, des Gesprächs zwischen Abraham und Jahwe in Gen 18,22 ﬀ. und von Hi 1, BZAW 143 (Berlin, 1976), 143 f. 81 Die nach-dtr. geistige Welt des Stückes erhellt schon der Konkordanzbefund (s. M. Köckert [Anm. 69], 180–183), vor allem zu „Tun von Gerechtigkeit und Recht“ und „den Weg JHWHs bewahren“. 82 Vgl. auch 24:3b mit 28:6b.8 und zum ganzen A. Rofé, „An Enquiry into the Betrothal of Rebekah“, in: E. Blum u. a. (Hg.), Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte. FS R. Rendtorﬀ (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1990), 27–39.

die geschichte der abrahamüberlieferung

127

Gen 15 ist zu Beginn auf Kap. 14 abgestimmt83 und schon deshalb kein Kandidat für ältere Überlieferung.84 Die Frage der literarischen Einordnung von Gen 15 entscheidet sich an seinem Verhältnis zu Gen 17 und zur Priesterschrift. Schon länger hat man auf die thematischen Beziehungen zwischen beiden ‚Bundesschlüssen‘ hingewiesen. Doch derlei beweist bei gleichem Stoﬀ wenig. Belastbarer dürfte die Argumentation mit der Selbstprädikation Gottes in 15:7 sein: „Ich bin JHWH, der dich herausgeführt hat aus Ur-Kasdim, um dir dieses Land zu geben.“ Mit Ur-Kasdim nimmt sie 11:28 auf. Der gesamte Vers kombiniert den Dekalogvorspruch Ex 20:2 mit Lev 25:38 und Gen 11:28. Das spricht m.E. dafür, nicht nur den Geschichtsvorblick in V. (11),13– 1685, sondern das gesamte Stück als nach-priesterlich zu beurteilen.86 Hat man jedoch Gen 15 bewußt dem programmatischen Kap. 17 vorangestellt, dann doch wohl in korrigierender Absicht: Dem verzweifelten Lachen Abrahams in 17:17 stellt 15:6 den Glauben des Ahn entgegen.87 Auch die Gen 15 durchweg bewegende Frage, wer mit Recht Abrahams Erbe ist, zeigt den Abstand zu Gen 17 an. Gen 15 gehört in jedem Fall zu den jüngsten Stücken der Abrahamüberlieferung. Dieser Geschwindmarsch durch die Abrahamüberlieferung in der Genesis hat mehr Hypothetisches als Sicheres zu Tage gefördert. Das ist gewiß bedauerlich, aber einer Zunft nicht ganz unsachgemäß, die darum weiß, dass sie bestenfalls „vor dem Herrn wandelt“, aber noch nicht bei ihm ist. Zwei Einsichten haben sich bei mir jedoch gefestigt: (1) Nicht nur die einzelnen Erzählkreise von Abraham, Isaak und Jakob hatten ein längeres literarisches Eigenleben (wie bei Jakob) oder 83 Nachdem Abraham in 14:21 ﬀ. auf seinen Lohn verzichtet hat, erhält er in 15:1a zugesagt: „… dein Lohn ist sehr groß.“ Die Selbstvorstellung „Ich bin dein Schild …“ spielt auf 14:20 an. Die Zahl der Knechte Abrahams in 14:14 stimmt mit dem Zahlenwert der Buchstaben des Namens „Elieser“ in 15:2 überein. Zu den Bezügen auf Gen 14 und 17 in Gen 15 s. Th. Römer, „Genesis 15 und 17“, DBAT 26 (1989/90), 32–47; ders., „Recherches …“ (Anm. 58), 205 ﬀ., allerdings überzeugen m. E. nicht alle angeführten Sachverhalte. 84 M. Köckert (Anm. 69), 204–247. 85 J. Chr. Gertz, „Abraham, Mose und der Exodus. Beobachtungen zur Redaktionsgeschichte von Gen 15“, in: J. Chr. Gertz u. a. (Hg.), Abschied vom Jahwisten, BZAW 315 (Berlin, 2002), 63–82. 86 S. auch K. Schmid, Erzväter und Exodus. Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des AT, WMANT 81 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1999), 172–186. 87 So schon B.D. Eerdmans, Alttestamentliche Studien I. Die Komposition der Genesis (Gießen, 1908), 39.

128

matthias köckert

ein kürzeres (wie bei Abraham). Vielmehr stellt die Väterüberlieferung selbst eine literarisch eigenständige Ursprungsgeschichte Israels neben der Exodusüberlieferung dar. Diese schon bei W. Staerk und K. Galling angelegte Sicht ist vor allem von A. de Pury, Th. Römer und zuletzt von K. Schmid stärker ausgearbeitet worden.88 (2) Die Befunde in der nicht-priesterlichen Abrahamüberlieferung legen eher ein Fortschreibungsmodell nahe als das paralleler Urkunden oder Quellen. Das haben vor allem E. Blum und—auf andere Weise— R.G. Kratz gezeigt.89 Dabei dürften wesentlich mehr Texte im Zuge der Einarbeitung in die Priesterschrift und danach entstanden sein, als bisher angenommen.90

88 W. Staerk, Studien zur Religions- und Sprachgeschichte des Alten Testaments, I. und II. Heft (Berlin, 1899), 27 ﬀ., 46ﬀ.; K. Galling, Die Erwählungstraditionen Israels (Gießen, 1928); A. de Pury, „La tradition patriarcale en Genèse 12-35,“ in: ders. (Hg.), Le pentateuque en question (Genève, 1989), 259–270; ders., Le cycle de Jacob comme légende autonome des origines d’Israel, in: J.A. Emerton (Hg.), Congress Volume Leuven, 1989, SVT 43 (Leiden, 1991), 78–96; Th. Römer (Anm. 10), 568–575, u. ö.; K. Schmid (Anm. 86). Ob die literarische Selbständigkeit beider Ursprungsgeschichten im Pentateuch auch Konkurrenz bedeuten muß, ist mir jedoch so sicher nicht. Man sehe nur das im Staatskult des Nordreichs gepﬂegte Exodusbekenntnis neben der gleichfalls im Norden beheimateten Jakobüberlieferung. 89 E. Blum (Anm. 5) und R.G. Kratz (Anm. 61), 249–304. 90 Vgl. das recht umfangreiche Gut in der Abrahamüberlieferung, das Chr. Levin der Endredaktion zuweist oder als „nachendredaktionelle Ergänzungen“ bezeichnet (Der Jahwist, FRLANT 157 [Göttingen, 1993], 141–196).

THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF JERUSALEM AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF KINGS

Nadav Na"aman

Introduction The Bible narrates in a linear and continuous manner the history of Israel from its inception down to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Some periods in this historical sequence are not illuminated at all by extra-biblical sources, and the Bible alone describes them systematically. Extra-biblical sources concerning biblical ﬁgures and events are available only for the period of the divided monarchies of Israel and Judah, from the late tenth century (i.e., Shishak’s campaign) down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile (587 BCE). However, the number and scope of these sources are limited and are insuﬃcient even for a schematic description of the history of the two kingdoms. For example, only few Israelite and Judean rulers are mentioned in royal inscriptions and seal impressions, and the data extracted from these sources is restricted in scope and meager in detail. When set against the biblical account they ﬁll in some gaps in the history and help us to evaluate the authenticity of the biblical descriptions. But discussed in isolation, their contribution turns out to be minimal. If we omitted the biblical history and used only the extra-biblical and archaeological data we would be unable to draw even a schematic history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Moreover, the unique development of Israelite religion and culture would be a mystery, since nothing of the kind is alluded to in the epigraphic and archaeological sources. Given the centrality of biblical history for the research of the land and its inhabitants, it is necessary to establish what might have been the sources available for its authors. It is commonly accepted today that biblical historiography was written no earlier than the eighth century BCE, and this explains the enormous gap between the biblical history of the early history of Israel, including the United Monarchy, and realities of the 13th–10th centuries as deduced from all the available sources. The study of biblical history shifts to the description of the

130

nadav na"aman

emergence and development of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the late 10th-early 6th centuries. The reliability of the history of the two kingdoms as related in the Book of Kings is an issue of great importance and the problem of the sources available to its author (or authors) is of utmost importance for this issue. Like all other accounts of the history of Israel, the Book of Kings was written ﬁrst of all in order to convey religious, ideological and ethical messages to the readers and hearers. However, the decision of the author to follow the sequence of events—king by king in the two neighbouring kingdoms—indicates that he intended to write a history. He was aware of the importance of sources for writing a reliable history, and to corroborate the authenticity of his descriptions he sometimes cited his sources. On other occasions he referred to the reality of his own time (using the words “until this day”), as evidence of the authenticity of his stories. On many occasions he inserted data that was irrelevant to the messages he was trying to convey. Their inclusion indicates his eﬀorts to integrate in his work all the details that he discovered in his sources. What kinds of sources were available to the author of the Book of Kings? Recovering the sources and the way the author worked them is essential for uncovering the fundaments on which the history was built. Only the ﬁnal work has come down to us, and separating the sources from the later elements in which they were integrated is quite uncertain. In seeking to identify the early sources we must ﬁrst of all establish where the documents were stored by ancient Near Eastern kingdoms, and how long they were kept. Archives that have so far been discovered in long-enduring Near Eastern cities usually contain only tablets of the last few generations.1 This is the case in the archives discovered in Babylonia, Assyria, Arrapha, Elam, Alalakh and Ugarit.2 Exceptional are the Hittites, who kept

1 Throughout the discussion I distinguished between archives and libraries, although the distinction is not always clear and there are instances of archive with library, or a library with archive. For a discussion of the problem, see K.R. Veenhof, “Cuneiform Archives: An Introduction”, in: K.R. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries (Leiden, 1986), pp. 1–11; O. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500–300 B.C. (Bethesda, 1998), pp. 1–9. Veenhof (p. 7) deﬁned archive as “the total of records accumulated during the time a particular task was performed by an institution or person …. and still present with those who made them out or used them”. 2 For a detailed survey of the archives discovered in Western Asia, see Pedersén, ibid., with earlier literature.

the temple library and the composition of the book

131

old tablets for many generations.3 However, even in Hatti there is no indication that late scribes searched for old archival documents in order to retrieve information. In the story of the journey of Wenamun, it is related that Zakar-Ba#al, king of Byblos, “had brought records of his ancestors and had them read before me”. However, the text is literary and it remains unclear whether a search for old documents really took place.4 There is no indication that ancient Near Eastern scribes ever searched in archives in an eﬀort to locate old documents and clarify events of great antiquity. Nor did pre-Hellenistic Greek historians consult archives to retrieve information from original documents.5 It is evident that non-literary texts (such as legal, administrative and economic documents, or letters) were kept in ancient Near Eastern archives for only a few generations and then thrown out or disposed of for secondary use. In light of this evidence, I very much doubt that Israel and Judah, unlike all other ancient Near Eastern kingdoms, copied archival documents for posterity. Indeed, there is no clear citation of archival documents in the Pentateuch and Early Prophets.6 The commonly-held assumption that biblical authors consulted archives and retrieved infor3 H. Otten, “Archive und Bibliotheken in Hattuˇsa”, in: Veenhof (n. 1), pp. 184–190; ˘ Hethiter—Ergebnisse der AusgrabunP. Neve, “Hattuscha, Haupt- und Kultstadt der gen in der Oberstadt,” Hethitica 8 (1987), pp. 297–318; idem, “Bo˘gazköy-Hattusha— New Results of the Excavations in the Upper City,” Anatolica 16 (1990), pp. 7–19; Pedersén (n. 1), pp. 44–56. 4 For the text, see J.A. Wilson, in ANET, p. 27a; H. Goedicke, The Report of Wenamun (Baltimore and London, 1975), p. 153. For discussion, see J. Van Seters, In Search of History. Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven and London, 1983), p. 198; M. Liverani, Prestige and Interest. International Relations in the Near East ca. 1600–1100 B.C. (Padova, 1990), p. 248. In letter EA 74:10–12 Rib-Adda wrote to the Pharaoh as follows: “May the king inspect the tablets of his father’s house, whether the ruler in Byblos has not been a loyal servant”. But the statement is rhetorical and does not reﬂect reality. The two sources indicate that it was possible to ﬁnd out in archives records of the past, but it remains unclear whether it was customary to search in archives for documentary evidence. 5 A. Momigliano, “Historiography on Written Tradition and Historiography on Oral Tradition,” Studies in Historiography (London, 1966), pp. 211–217; Van Seters (n. 4), pp. 4, 40–51, 195–199; R. Thomas, “Literacy and the City-State in Archaic and Classical Greece,” in: A.K. Bowman and G. Woolf (ed.), Literacy and Power in the ancient World (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 35–37. 6 Documents are quoted in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah for determining rights, and some scholars suggested that their authors used archival sources. See E.J. Bickerman, “The Edict of Cyrus in Ezra 1,” JBL 65 (1946), pp. 249–275; A.Momigliano, “Eastern Elements in Post-Exilic Jewish, and Greek, Historiography,” Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford, 1977), pp. 31–33.

132

nadav na"aman

mation of great antiquity from original documents kept for centuries is erroneous. Similarly, the notion that the author of the Book of Kings had searched in the archives of the palace and temple for sourcematerial must be abandoned. What kinds of sources were available to ancient historians when they composed their works? To investigate the problem of the sourcematerial that might have been available to Manetho, Redford examined the contents of temple libraries in Egypt in the second half of the ﬁrst millennium BCE. These libraries encompassed a wide range of materials with which the fully-trained scribe was supposed to be familiar (e.g., king lists, ‘annals’, inventories, letters, stories, ritual literature, reference compendia, etc.). He concluded that the rich sourcematerial of a temple library (or libraries) allowed Manetho to write the ancient history of Egypt in his Aegyptiaca.7 A Babylonian temple library (or libraries), which had a rich variety of texts (e.g., Sumerian and Akkadian myths and epics, king-lists, chronicles, ritual literature, etc.), likewise allowed Berossus to write the history of the country in his Babyloniaca.8 Josephus mentioned the Hellenistic writers Menander of Ephesos and Dius and asserts that they derived their material from the native sources of the Tyrians (Antiquities of the Jews ix 283, 287; Contra Apionem I 112, 116). He states that the Tyrians kept for many years old books in which were recorded memorable events (Contra Apionem I 107). The few passages that Josephus cites indicate that detailed king lists, some chronicles and historical narratives were available to the historians who wrote the history of Tyre in the Hellenistic period. As for the seventh century BCE, about one-ﬁfth of the 30,000 tablets and fragments in the library of Ashurbanipal from Nineveh are nonliterary (e.g., legal and administrative texts, letters, reports, etc.). The library contained mainly the so-called “canonical” literature of Mesopotamia, including omen texts, epic literature, wisdom literature, myths, incantations, conjurations, prayers, sign lists, etc. This variety 7 D.B. Redford, Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History (Mississauga, 1986), pp. 206–228; G.P. Verbrugghe and J.M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated. Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor, 1996), pp. 95–212. 8 S.M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (SANE 1/5; Malibu, 1978); A. Kuhrt, “Berossus’ Babyloniaka and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia,” in: A. Kuhrt and S. SherwinWhite (eds.), Hellenism in the East (London, 1987), pp. 32–56; Verbrugghe and Wickersham, ibid., pp. 13–91.

the temple library and the composition of the book

133

indicates the wide range of texts that might have been found in a Near Eastern royal library in the late Iron Age.9 It is clear that libraries developed gradually in certain important urban centres, where urban life continued uninterruptedly for centuries, (the library of Ashurbanipal is an exception). These libraries retained many compositions of various kinds, and the scribes and priests used them for study and teaching and in their professional duties. The ability of the late authors (Manetho, Berossos, Dius and Menander) to write the history of their countries depended on the scope and quality of the sources available to them, and—no less important—on their understanding of ancient realities. Analyzing their works makes it clear that where sources are lacking there remains a wide gap in the sequence of their historical description. The uninterrupted continuity and stability of the political structure, of the social and religious institutions, and of the spiritual and material culture might have helped late authors to reconstruct the past in a relatively faithful manner. Total destruction and profound changes in the political, social, economic, religious and cultural constitutions of the state and society could lead to a complete misunderstanding of the ancient reality even when some old sources were available to the late author. The city of Jerusalem was the capital of Judah for long time and many kinds of works must have accumulated in its library. The range of collected texts was certainly narrower than the rich palace and temple libraries of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but included all that was necessary for the education and function of the professional elite of Jerusalem, and the other urban centres in Judah. The library, which was probably located in the temple, was the source of practical and theoretical knowledge for the high oﬃcials, priests and scribes, the educated elite of the kingdom of Judah, and for instructing young apprentices.10 Old texts were apparently used for educational purpose and copied several times, and so survived until the destruction in 587 BCE.

9 A.L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago, 1964), pp. 15–24; S. Parpola, “The Royal Archives of Nineveh,” in: Veenhof (n. 1), pp. 223– 236; T. Kwasman, “Neo-Assyrian Legal Archives in the Kouyunjik Collection,” in: Veenhof (n. 1), pp. 237–240. 10 I.M. Young (“Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence,” VT 48 [1998], pp. 239–253, 408–422) emphasized that in ancient Israelite society only scribes, priests and the upper class had the skills of writing and reading, while the rest of the population had no such skills.

134

nadav na"aman

I suggest that the temple library of Jerusalem was available to the author of the Book of Kings.11 The rich corpus accumulated there for many generations was his main (or even exclusive) source when writing the history of Israel, just as the above-mentioned Hellenistic authors were able to use temple libraries when writing their histories. He was probably a priest of high degree, hence his intimate knowledge of the inner temple, the cult and the ‘sacred literature’ of the priests and scribes. If this assumption is correct, the material used by the author in his work reﬂects the source material available to him in the temple library. Let me discuss four examples of the kind of sources available for the author of the Book of Kings.

The Sources of the Introductory Verses of the Kings of Israel and Judah The author of Kings described the histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in parallel, linking them with synchronisms. Israelite synchronisms note the accession of a Judahite king in relation to the reigning year of the contemporary king of Israel, and Judahite synchronisms note the accession of an Israelite king in relation to the reigning year of the contemporary king of Judah. In addition, the introductory verses include the length of each king’s reign, the name of his father, his kingdom (Israel/Judah) and capital. The introductory verses about the kings of Judah mention also the king’s age upon accession (missing for Abijam and Asa) and the name of his mother, but there is no such information about the kings of Israel (missing for Jehoram and Ahaz). Lists of kings with the years of their reign were kept throughout the ancient Near East. As we have seen, such lists served all the historians who composed their histories during the Hellenistic period, and were the main, sometimes the only, sources they had for reconstructing the sequence of the reigning kings. It is evident that the author had seen the lists of the kings of Israel and Judah with the years of their reign, and integrated them in his work. Bin-Nun noted that the author used diﬀerent types of introductory formulae for the kings of Israel and Judah. Hence, two diﬀerent king-lists were available for him: one for 11 N. Na"aman, “Sources and Composition in the History of David,” in: V. Fritz and P.R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States, JSOTSup 148 (Sheﬃeld, 1996), pp. 180–183.

the temple library and the composition of the book

135

Israel and the other for Judah.12 The list of the kings of Judah, and possibly also that of the kings of Israel, might have been used for the ancestor cult in the two kingdoms. The period of the United Monarchy was not included in the list of kings available to the author. The length of the reigns of David and Solomon is schematic and the length of Saul’s reign is missing. The chronological data of the United Monarchy are not derived from an ancient source and, unlike the years of kings of the divided monarchies of Israel and Judah, are of no value for the historical discussion. As for the source of the synchronisms, this is a subject of controversy, because the ancient Near Eastern king lists had no such feature. Correlating passages from the history of two adjoining kingdoms appears in the Assyrian synchronistic history, a work dating from the 9th century, which describes, from the Assyrian viewpoint, the struggles, agreements and border arrangements that took place between Assyria and Babylonia in the course of centuries.13 But this source does not include precise chronological data about the reigns of the listed kings. The Book of Kings has often been compared to the Babylonian Chronicle, which recorded the main events in the history of Babylonia between 747 and 669 BCE, with special interest in its relations with Assyria and Elam. The events described are dated by the year of the current king’s reign, and the chronicle sometimes notes the years of the Assyrian kings’ reign.14 But it is very doubtful if a work of such a pattern, correlating events that took place in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, was in fact composed in one of these kingdoms. On the contrary—the Book of Kings refers to the Chronicles of the kings of Israel/Kings of Judah as two separate works. Likewise, Jepsen’s suggestion—that a detailed synchronistic chronicle, beginning in the time of David and ending after the fall of Samaria, is embedded in the Book of Kings—lacks all foundation.15 It seems to me that almost all the synchronisms were calculated by the author on the basis of the years of the kings’ reigns, and that he possessed only a few synchronisms, such as the assumed simultaneous accession of Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the demise of Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah at the same time, and the date of the 12 S.R. Bin-Nun, “Formulas from Royal Records of Israel and Judah,” VT 18 (1968), pp. 414–418; see Van Seters (n. 4), pp. 297–298. 13 A.K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locust Valley, 1975), pp. 50–56, 157–170. 14 Grayson, ibid., pp. 14–17, 69–87. 15 A. Jepsen, Die Quellen des Königsbuches (2nd rev. ed.; Halle, 1956), pp. 30–40.

136

nadav na"aman

capture of Amaziah of Judah by Joash of Israel. Hence most of the synchronisms are of limited value in determining the chronology of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the First Temple period, and such a chronology should rest primarily on the years of the kings’ reigns. The king’s age upon accession and the names of the queen-mothers, usually mentioned for the kings of Judah, are not found in king lists from the ancient Near East. But Hittite sacriﬁcial lists record sacriﬁces oﬀered to the deceased kings and queens who reigned in Hatti from the early kingdom until the last days of the empire.16 The kings and queens were allotted oﬀerings as part of the oﬃcial royal ancestor cult of the Hittite court. The author of the Book of Kings must have extracted the names of the mothers of the kings of Judah from a king list that served—like the sacriﬁcial lists of the kings of Hatti—in the oﬃcial ancestor cult of the Judahite royal dynasty.17 The history of Menander of Ephesus records the age of the king and the years of his reign, as well as details about the changing dynasties in the kingdom of Tyre. This is demonstrated by the following passage (Josephus, Contra Apionem, I, 121–123):18 On the death of Hirom the throne passed to his son Balbazer, who lived forty-three years and reigned seventeen. His successor Abdastratus lived thirty-nine years and reigned nine. The four sons of his nurse conspired against him and slew him. The eldest of these, Methusastartus, son of 16 For the lists, see H. Otten, “Die hethitischen ‘Königslisten’ und die altorientalische Chronologie,” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 58 (1951), pp. 47–71; idem, Die hethitischen historischen Quellen und die altorientalische Chronologie, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (Mainz and Wiesbaden, 1968), particularly pp. 25–29; T.P.J. van der Hout, “Death as Privilege: The Hittite Royal Funerary Ritual,” in: J.M. Bremer, T.P.J. van der Hout and H.R. Peters (eds), Hidden Futures. Death and Immortality in Ancient Egypt, Anatolia, the Classical, Biblical and Arabic-Islamic World (Amsterdam, 1994), pp. 37–44. 17 For the part played by king lists in the cult of ancestors ceremonies, see J.J. Finkelstein, “The Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty,” JCS 20 (1966), pp. 95–118; M. Birot, “Fragment de Rituel de Mari relative au kispum,” in: B. Alster (ed.), Death In Mesopotamia, 26e Rencontre Assyriologiqie Internationale (Copenhagen, 1980), pp. 139– 150; W.T. Pitard, “The Ugaritic Funerary Text RS 34.126,” BASOR 232 (1978), pp. 65–75; B.A. Levine and J.M. Tarragon, “Dead Kings and Rephaim—The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty,” JAOS 104 (1984), pp. 649–659; B.B. Schmidt, “A Re-Evaluation of the Ugaritic King List (KTU I.113),” in: N. Wyatt, W.G.E. Watson and J.B. Lloyd (eds), Ugarit, Religion and Culture. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Ugarit, Religion and Culture, Edinburgh, July 1994 (Münster, 1996), pp. 289–304; J. Vidal, “King Lists and Oral Tradition: From History to Memory,” UF 32 (2000), pp. 555–566. 18 H.S.J. Thackeray, Josephus: Against Apion (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 1 (Cambridge Mass and London, 1926), pp. 210–213.

the temple library and the composition of the book

137

Deleastartus, mounted the throne and lived ﬁfty-four years and reigned twelve. He was followed by his brother, Astharymus, who lived ﬁfty-eight years and reigned nine. He was slain by his brother Phelles, who seized the throne and reigned eight months, having reached the age of ﬁfty, when he was slain by Ithobal, priest of Astarte, who lived forty-eight years and reigned thirty-two.

There is no exact equivalent in ancient Near Eastern documents of a king list that compiles the years of the reign, the age of the king upon accession and information about the change of rule following an uprising. But such a list may be compared to the Assyrian chronicles from Mari, a city that was located on the middle Euphrates, which are dated to the latter half of the 18th century BCE.19 These chronicles include a list of l¯ımu (oﬃcials after whom the year was named), beside references to major events that took place during that time, and comments about the changes of rule in the kingdoms that were involved in the struggles then raging in northern Mesopotamia. The Assyrian King List also includes, here and there, comments of a chronicle-like nature, mostly referring to the circumstances of the changing rule in Assyria.20 It seems, therefore, that the lists of kings and their reigns that were written in a number of kingdoms sometimes included additional details about the rulers and changes of dynasties. The list of the kings of Israel probably included their names and reigns, perhaps with comments about rebellions and the changing rule in the kingdom, and it is not impossible that this was the source from which the author of the Book of Kings derived all or part of his information about the diﬀerent ruling dynasties in the kingdom. The list of the kings of Judah included the names of the kings, their age at the time of accession, the years of their reign and possibly their mothers’ names. These data enabled the author to write the introductory verses for every king in both kingdoms, while the synchronisms between them were generally calculated by him. The names of the mothers of the kings up to Amon, the son of Manasseh, appear unsystematically—sometimes with the mother’s father’s name (in the cases of Abijam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Ahaziah, Jotham 19 M. Birot, “Les chroniques ‘assyriennes’ de Mari,” MARI, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires 4 (Paris, 1985), pp. 219–242. 20 I.J. Gelb, “Two Assyrian King-Lists,” JNES 13 (1954), pp. 209–230; A.L. Oppenheim, “Babylonian and Assyrian Historical Texts,” in ANET, pp. 564–566; S. Yamada, “The Editorial History of the Assyrian King List,” ZA 84 (1994), pp. 11–37, with earlier literature.

138

nadav na"aman

and Hezekiah), sometimes the mother’s name and origin without the father’s name (Rehoboam, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah). In Manasseh’s case only the mother’s name is given, while the mothers of Jehoram and Ahaz are not named at all. It seems that these data reﬂect the source that was available to the author. As for the kings from Amon through Zedekiah, there are full details about their mothers, with their fathers’ names and origin. It seems to me that the data concerning the mothers of the last kings of Judah did not derive from any source but were personally known to the authors (Dtr1, Dtr2), who lived not long after those rulers. There is, therefore, no need to assume that the change in the form of the listing means that there was a change of writers after Hezekiah, nor is it necessary to draw far-reaching conclusions about the identity of the author on the basis of the change of formula in reference to rulers who reigned not long before the history was composed.21

The Death Formulae about the Kings of Israel and Judah The concluding verses about a king’s decease describe his death and his burial place, followed by the name of his successor—but only when the king died peacefully in his bed. They are missing for Joram, son of Ahab, and Ahaziahu, son of Jehoram, whose death is integrated in the story of Jehu’s rebellion, and the three kings of Judah who have been deported and died in exile (Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah). (A) When the king died peacefully in his bed, the formula in these cases is: “and so-and-so slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in …”. The phrase “with his ancestors” appears only in reference to the kings of Judah, combining the burial with the continuity of the dynasty. This formula is not used when the king in question was murdered, or otherwise died a violent death. In two cases—those of Ahab of Israel and Amaziah of Judah—the death formulae merit a special examination. Amaziah, king of Judah, died in the revolt in Lachish and was buried in Jerusalem. Concerning his son, Uzziah, it is said that “He 21 Stated in opposition to the conclusions of B. Halpern and D.S. Vanderhooft, “The Editions of Kings in the 7th-6th Centuries B.C.E.,” HUCA 62 (1991), pp. 179–244 (particularly pp. 197–199).

the temple library and the composition of the book

139

built Elath and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept with his ancestors” (2Kgs 14:22). Here the reference to “the king” is taken to mean Amaziah, but it is more likely that the author was referring to Joash, the king of Israel, who had captured Amaziah, conquered Jerusalem and subjugated the kingdom of Judah. The author suggests that following the death of Joash, Judah was freed from the yoke of Israel, and Uzziah was free to build Elath. Thus the formula, “slept with his ancestors” refers not to the king who was killed in the revolt, but to the one who died peacefully in bed (Joash of Israel).22 The narrative states that Ahab was killed in the battle with the Aramaeans in Ramoth-gilead (1 Kgs 22:1–37). Yet the ﬁnal formula about him (v. 40) says, “So Ahab slept with his ancestors; and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead”. Scholars who noticed this irregularity supposed that Ahab actually died peacefully in bed, and that the story about his death on the battleﬁeld was not historical and was inserted at a later stage.23 It seems to me, however, that the story about Ahab’s death in battle was known to the author of Kings when he composed his work. This is supported by the introductory and ﬁnal verses about Jehoshaphat. The description of Jehoshaphat as a king who did “what was right in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kgs 22:43–44), rests on his ﬁdelity to YHWH in the battle with the Aramaeans (1 Kings 22), and in the campaign of the three kings against Moab (2Kings 3). His ﬁnal formula: “Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his might that he showed, and how he warred …” (1 Kgs 22: 45), rests on the wars which he fought alongside the king of Israel (1 Kgs 22; 2Kgs 3). Thus, the two prophetic stories were at the author’s disposal when he wrote the introductory and ﬁnal verses about Jehoshaphat.24 Why then was the formula indicating a peaceful death (“slept with his ancestors”) applied to Ahab? It must be remembered that Ahab was the only king of Israel who died on the battleﬁeld, and since, as the narrative shows, he was buried in Samaria (1 Kgs 22:37)—unlike all the 22 Halpern and Vanderhooft, ibid., pp. 186–188; N. Na"aman, “Azariah of Judah and Jeroboam II of Israel,” VT 43 (1993), pp. 227–229. Halpern and Vanderhooft supposed that in verse 22 (“He built Elath and restored it to Judah after that the king slept with his fathers”) “he” refers to Amaziah, but I think it refers to Uzziah, who was regent with his father after Amaziah’s defeat in his war with Joash of Israel. 23 Halpern and Vanderhooft (n. 21), pp. 230–235, with earlier literature. 24 N. Na"aman, “Prophetic Stories as Sources for the Histories of Jehoshaphat and the Omrides,” Biblica 78 (1997), pp. 153–173.

140

nadav na"aman

Israelite kings who were killed by rebels and were given no burial—the author applied the usual death formula. In conclusion, it may be said that the author made consistent use of the formula “slept with his ancestors”, the only possible exception being the case of Ahab—due, perhaps, to the distinction between Ahab, who was buried in Samaria, and the kings of Israel who perished at the hands of rebels and who, in the author’s view, were not buried. It is also clear that the author used the formula of a peaceful death in all cases where he had no indication of the ruler’s unnatural death. This was a negative inference and the author needed no source for it. (B) The last part of the formula mentions the place of burial of the rulers who were fortunate enough to be properly buried. The author showed obvious bias with regard to the burial of the kings of Israel and Judah. Where the latter are concerned, he emphasizes that even those kings who were killed by rebels (Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah) were given proper burial, because they belonged to a dynasty which reigned continuously and their descendants took pains to ensure their burial in the tombs of the Davidic dynasty. In Israel, however, dynasties came and went, and there was no-one to see to the proper burial of kings who were killed in the course of rebellions. The description is clearly one-sided, emphasizing the contrast between the dynasties that ruled in Israel and Judah. This kind of datum is exceptional in the historiography of the ancient Near East, and to the best of my knowledge occurs only in a Babylonian work known as the “Dynastic Chronicle”, whose literary genre is closer to that of a king list than to a chronicle.25 Only three separate fragments of the chronicle are preserved, and a passage in one of them refers to seven kings who ruled in succession in Babylonia in the late 11th and early 10th centuries BCE. After recording the years of their respective reigns, it notes where they were buried—six of them in the palaces in various cities of the kingdom of Babylonia, and one in a marshy region. Does this suggest that a similar source, one that noted the burial place of the kings of Israel and Judah, was available to the author of the Book of Kings? It seems to me than an analysis of the book leads to a quite diﬀerent conclusion. Grayson (n. 13), pp. 40–42, 139–144; for a discussion of the text, see I. Finkel, “Bilingual Chronicle Fragments,” JCS 32 (1980), pp. 65–80. 25

the temple library and the composition of the book

141

No burial place is mentioned for the Israelite kings who were killed by rebels (Nadab, Elah, Zimri, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah and Pekah). There is no mention of the burial place of Jeroboam I and Menahem; of Baasha it is said that he was buried in Tirzah, while all the kings of the dynasties of Omri and Jehu are said to have been buried in Samaria. These data show that when it came to the burial places of the kings of Israel the author needed no source, but stated that the kings were buried in the capital, their seat of power, ﬁrst in Tirzah and then in Samaria. Jeroboam I had several capitals (Shechem, Tirzah and possibly Penuel), and perhaps this uncertainty caused the author to refrain from stating where he was buried. All the kings of Judah, from David to Ahaz, including kings who were killed in uprisings (Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah), are said to have been buried in the City of David. There is a marked diﬀerence in the ﬁnal formulae about the burial place from Hezekiah onward. The place of Hezekiah’s burial is omitted,26 and Manasseh and Amon were buried “in the garden of Uzza”. The exact burial place of Josiah and Jehoiakim is not mentioned, while Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, who were deported, died and were buried in exile. The “slept with his ancestors” formula disappears after Hezekiah, so there is a clear connection between the burial in a new place (the garden of Uzza) and its omission for the kings buried there. On the basis of the changes in the introductory and ﬁnal formulae, including the burial formula of Hezekiah, Halpern and Vanderhooft argued that the oldest composition of the Book of Kings ended in the reign of Hezekiah and that a second edition was written in the reign of Josiah.27 However, the shift of the burial place obliges a change of formula since the kings buried in the new place were not buried with their ancestors. Moreover, the authors (Dtr1, Dtr2) worked not long after the reign of Manasseh and Amon, and could state, from personal knowledge, exactly where they were buried. In this case, written source

26 For the omission of the burial place of Hezekiah, see N. Na"aman, “Death Formulae and the Burial Places of the Kings of the House of David,” Biblica 85 (2004), pp. 245–254. 27 Halpern and Vanderhooft (n. 21), pp. 179–244. A similar view had already been proposed by H. Weippert, “Die “deuteronomistischen” Beurteilungen der Könige von Israel und Juda und das Problem der Redaktion der Königsbücher,” Biblica 53 (1972), pp. 301–339; A Lemaire, “Vers l’histoire de la rédaction des Livres des Rois,” ZAW 98 (1986), pp. 221–236.

142

nadav na"aman

was redundant. Regarding earlier kings of Judah, however, the author had only general knowledge about their place of burial, and therefore accounted for it with the generalized formula, “with his ancestors in the city of David”. We may, therefore, conclude that the author of the Book of Kings had no written source about the kings of Judah and Israel who died a natural death, nor about their place of burial. The formula “slept with his ancestors” was applied to every ruler about whom the author’s sources did not state that he had been murdered, and the place of burial was assumed to be the capital of the respective rulers. But when it came to the kings of Judah in the 7th century, the authors had ﬁrst-hand knowledge about their mothers and burial place, and could describe these data accurately without recourse to sources.

The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel/Judah In the concluding verses about every king of Israel or Judah the author names the source upon which he had drawn: “And the rest of the acts of so-and-so … are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah”. The term “Book of the Chronicles” refers to a written scroll which contained a dry record of events that took place in the course of so-and-so’s reign. Thus the phrase “the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah” suggests a source in the form of a scroll-book that recorded the events in the reigns of the kings of Israel/Judah, from which the author purportedly drew his information. Similarly, the phrase “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kgs 11: 41) indicates the source from which the author had drawn the information about the reign of Solomon. The ﬁrst part of this formula (“And the rest of the acts of so-andso …”) is always followed by some reference to the contents of the said source. In some cases it is, “and all his might” (Baasha, Omri, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam II of Israel; Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah of Judah), or “how he warred” (Jeroboam I, Joash and Jeroboam II of Israel; Jehoshaphat of Judah), and sometimes with the name of the opponent with whom the king had warred. In the case of Zimri and Shallum, the text adds, “and his conspiracy which he made”. Also in the case of some of the kings (Asa, Ahab and Hezekiah), there are references to their building projects. Singular formulae appear in the case of Solomon (“and his wisdom”), and Manasseh (“and his sin that

the temple library and the composition of the book

143

he sinned”). These extensions of the formula are the chief indications from which to try and deduce what kind of source is being quoted. Strangely, almost all the events mentioned in the ﬁnal verses are known from the history of the said kings. Thus, for example, there is a detailed description of the war waged by Asa against Baasha, then it is said that he had built the cities of Mizpah and Geba. Thus the text, “The rest of the acts of Asa, all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah” (1 Kgs 15:23), only summarizes the preceding detailed description. The history of Joash, king of Israel, narrates how he defeated the Aramaeans in three battles, and how he also fought and defeated Amaziah of Judah. His ﬁnal verses (2Kgs 13:12; 14:15) merely repeat in brief what had been ampliﬁed before. A comparison between all the ﬁnal formulae in the Book of Kings and the histories of the kings in question, reveals that only the building projects of Ahab and Hezekiah are absent in the preceding text (the ﬁnal formula concerning Jeroboam II, in 2Kgs 14:28, is so corrupt that scholars cannot agree about its original form). The author needed no written source about Hezekiah’s quarrying project (2Kgs 20:20: “how he made the pool and a conduit and brought water into the city”), since as an inhabitant of Jerusalem he knew perfectly well who had made the pool and the tunnel that were in use in his time. Ahab’s building projects, referred to in his ﬁnal formula (1 Kgs 22:39: “the ivory house which he built and all the cities that he built”), are not mentioned earlier in his history, but it is possible that the author deduced this much both from the words of Amos about the houses of ivory (Amos 3:15) and from the prophetic stories about Ahab and his successors that referred to the palaces he had built in Samaria and Jezreel (1 Kgs 21:1; 2Kgs 9:15,30–33).28 On the whole, an analysis of the ﬁnal formulae reveals that the author made the utmost use of the sources at his disposal. The formula, “and the rest of the acts of so-and-so and all that he did …” was put in to emphasize that the work was based on sources, and therefore trustworthy. In this sense it resembles the phrase “unto this day”, by which the author indicates that the state of aﬀairs described in his story persists in his time, reinforcing his trustworthiness. What was the nature of the works entitled “the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah”, and how extensive were the data

28

Na"aman (n. 24), pp. 155–162.

144

nadav na"aman

that the author drew from them? According to the author of the Book of Kings, these were his only sources for the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah, including descriptions of battles, uprisings, building projects, even cultic arrangements. The question arises, could all the material about the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah have been drawn exclusively from those sources? The extensions in the formulae concerning Solomon (“and his wisdom”) and Manasseh (“and his sin that he sinned”) show that the author was making broad use of the formula, since it is not likely that wisdom literature and a list of “sins” appeared in any bare chronicles. The stereotypical nature of the ﬁnal verses calls for caution in considering the nature and scope of the said works.29 Some scholars have proposed that the Book of the Chronicles was a work composed during the First Temple period on the basis of the royal annals, and a copy of it reached the author in the Babylonian exile. He used it in his work and named it “chronicles”, after the primary sources used by the author of the presumed early composition.30 These scholars assumed that the author of the Book of Kings had only a single source that contained all the various sources embedded in it. However, there is no ancient Near Eastern parallel for such a comprehensive chronicle-like work. Moreover, introducing an interim stage between the written sources and the history requires the existence of another, anonymous, author and places a needless burden on our understanding of the process of composition. It is better to assume that the author of the Book of Kings composed his work in Jerusalem towards the end of the First Temple period, having at his disposal a collection of documents originating in the library of the Jerusalem temple, among which were the works he named “the chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah”.

29 For recent discussions on this issue, see Van Seters (n. 4), pp. 292–321; G. Garbini, “Le fonti citate nel “Libro dei Re” (a proposito degli “Atti di Salomone”, degli “Annali dei re di Giuda”, e degli “Annali dei re d’Israele”),” Henoch 3 (1981), pp. 26–44; D.L. Christensen, “Chronicles of the Kings (Israel/Judah), Book of the,” in ABD 1 (New York, 1992), pp. 991–992, with earlier literature; M. Haran, “The Books of the Chronicles “of the Kings of Judah” and “of the Kings of Israel”: What Sort of Books Were They?,” VT 49 (1999), pp. 156–164; M. Cogan, “Towards a Deﬁnition of the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel/Judah,” Eretz Israel 26 (1999), pp. 78–83, with earlier literature (Hebrew). 30 M. Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, JSOTSup 15 (Sheﬃeld, 1981), pp. 63–74 (original publication in 1943); Haran, ibid., pp. 156–164.

the temple library and the composition of the book

145

There is no doubt that considerable portions of the versatile material in the Book of Kings, notably the stories about the kings of Israel, are inappropriate to a “book of chronicles” type of source. Most of these stories belong to the genre of “prophetic stories”. The information about the relations between the kings of Israel and Judah was perhaps drawn from “the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah”, but a series of chronicle-like comments worked into the history of the kings of Israel (1 Kgs 16:24; 2Kgs 10:32; 13:3,22,24–25; 14:25; 15:19– 20,29; 17:3–6) must have derived from a work written in Israel. We may therefore suppose that the author had a source of northern origin, one that contained data about events that had happened in the kingdom of Israel. I have earlier proposed that the source for all or some of the uprisings that took place in the kingdom of Israel was a king list, which included the years of reigns and comments about the changing dynasties. The scroll named “the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel” must have combined the material contained in the king-list with data related to events of the 9th–8th centuries, such as the wars between Israel and Aram and the campaigns of the kings of Assyria to Israel. The titles “the Books of the Chronicles” were probably the names of early works that came into the author’s hands. But the author had other sources at his disposal for the description of the monarchical period, including a detailed list of the kings of Judah, prophetic stories, and perhaps a few royal inscriptions and books of the 8th century prophets. To stress the fact that his work rested on ancient sources, he chose to call them all “the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah”, indicating the trustworthiness of his work as being based on ancient sources originating in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

Prophetic Stories Scholars have been aware from the early days of biblical research that the author had access to stories about the acts of a prophets and the fulﬁlment of their prophecies. In the context of the Book of Kings we are concerned with stories about known by name prophets, as well as some anonymous ones, who operated in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and took part in its history. Thus, for example, the story about Ahijah the Shilonite and the wife of Jeroboam is ﬁtted into the history of that king’s reign, the stories of Elijah are worked into the history of

146

nadav na"aman

Ahab, as is the story which focuses on Micaiah son of Imlah, while the cycle of Elisha stories is mainly woven into the history of Joram, the son of Ahab, and partly into the history of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz.31 Before proceeding, we need to note the diﬀerence between the prophetic stories, which have a plot and an unmistakable literary style, and prophetic speeches composed by the author of the Book of Kings, in accordance with his understanding of the course of history. In these speeches he presented his conception of the way the god of Israel directed the history of his people, when in response to the sins of their ruler he sent a prophet who uttered a prophecy of disaster, which sooner or later came true. Needless to say, these speeches deliver a clear didactic message to the readers regarding the link between sin and punishment, and the proper way to worship the god of Israel.32 Among these prophetic speeches is the prophecy delivered by Ahijah to Jeroboam (1 Kgs 11:29–39), his second prophecy to Jeroboam, which was inserted into the story about the prophet and Jeroboam’s wife (1 Kgs 14:7–11,14–17), the prophecy of Jehu son of Hanani to Baasha (16:1–4), Elijah’s prophecy to Ahab, inserted into the story of Naboth’s vineyard (21:21–24), and which recurs in the prophecy of the young man prophet to Jehu (2Kgs 9:7–10), and Huldah’s prophecy in response to Josiah’s inquiry (22:15–20a). The texts showing the fulﬁlment of those prophecies were, obviously, also written by the author, and sometimes inserted into early stories (1 Kgs 12:15; 15:29–30; 16:11–13; 2Kgs 9:25b– 26,36–37; 10:10,17b). The insertion of prophetic speeches into the prophetic stories gave them a theological content which they had not had before, altered their messages and turned them into an important component of the author’s demonstration that YHWH’s will is manifested in history. One example is the story of Jehu’s revolt (2Kgs 9–10), which described the killing of the two kings, their kinsfolk and supporters, and the puriﬁcation of the cult of Baal. The author’s additions (2Kgs 9:7–10,36– 37; 10:10,17b) gave the story a new theological dimension, and linked it 31 For discussions on the prophetic stories, see recently S. Otto, Jehu, Elia und Elisa. Die Erzählung von der Jehu-Revolution und die Komposition der Elia-Elisa Erzählungen, BWANT 152 (Stuttgart, 2001); id., “The Composition of the Elijah-Elisha Stories and the Deuteronomistic History,” JSOT 27 (2003), pp. 487–508; with earlier literature. 32 G. von Rad, “The Deuteronomic Theology of History in I and II Kings,” The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 205–221; H.N. Wallace, “The Oracles Against the Israelite Dynasty in 1 and 2 Kings,” Biblica 67 (1986), pp. 21–40.

the temple library and the composition of the book

147

tightly to Elijah’s prophecy to Ahab and Jezebel, so that every stage of the revolt appeared as the fulﬁlment of a previous divine prophecy. Some scholars formerly assumed that the prophetic stories were composed in the kingdom of Israel, that their language was northern and their worldview reﬂected that of the prophets who worked in the Northern Kingdom. For example, Burney proposed that the language of those stories had distinctive features which might have been associated with a northern Israelite dialect, and this proposition was adopted by other scholars.33 But the supposedly northern quality of many of the expressions that Burney picked out is far from certain. Moreover, Ian Young pointed out that some of these distinctive expressions appear in the direct speech of Israelites (notably Elisha) or Aramaeans, and has suggested that the author of these stories deliberately put them in the mouths of these people by way of characterization.34 It is also noteworthy that the stories about the reigns of Ahab and his son Joram in which both the kings of Israel and Judah appear (1 Kgs 22; 2Kgs 3), clearly favour the king of Judah, and were presumably written in Judah. It therefore seems likely that some of the prophetic stories were composed in Judah, while others were adapted to some extent to make them accessible to the inhabitants of Judah too. Another question is, when were the prophetic stories composed? The full complexity of this question lies beyond the present discussion, but we may state that even the earliest stories were written many years after the events they described. They must have been transmitted orally through the generations, in the course of which they underwent so many changes that they reﬂect the time of their composition rather than the period to which they are attributed. Add to this the problem of the literary genre, and the great limitations of these stories as historical sources become obvious. 33 C.F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings (Oxford, 1903), pp. 207–209; G.A. Rendsburg, Linguistic Evidence for the Northern Origin of Selected Psalms (Atlanta, 1990), pp. 8–9; id., “Morphological Evidence for Regional Dialects of Ancient Hebrew,” in: W.R. Bodine (ed.), Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew (Winona Lake, 1992), pp. 65–88. 34 I. Young, “The “Northernisms” of the Israelite Narratives in Kings,” ZAH 8 (1995), pp. 63–70; W. Schniedewind and D. Sivan (“The Elijah-Elisha Narratives: A Test Case for the Northern Dialect of Hebrew,” JQR 87 [1997], pp. 303–337) have suggested that there is a clear linguistic resemblance between the literatures written in Samaria and Jerusalem, therefore language analysis would be an uncertain basis for determining the origin of the stories. However, they maintain that the spoken language was markedly diﬀerent in the two kingdoms, and therefore the northern dialect is recognizable, chieﬂy in passages containing direct speech.

148

nadav na"aman

It must be emphasized that the author wrote his work towards the end of the monarchical period, many years after the events in his narrative. He was not an historian of the school that ﬁrst developed in Greece in the classical period, and did not check his sources and their authenticity for the purpose of historical reconstruction. He had no idea when the prophetic stories had been composed—as far as he was concerned, they were legitimate sources, no diﬀerent from all the others which he used in his history of the people of Israel. He therefore integrated the available stories in his work, usually unchanged (except for some additions, the most important of which were the above-mentioned prophetic speeches). From these stories he also deduced the religious reality in the periods to which he attributed the stories, and judged the rulers of those times accordingly. Scholars are divided on the question, which of the prophetic stories were available to the author, and which were added to the work he composed at a later time. Of late the tendency has been to advance the date of many of these stories and assume that they were added to the history at a late stage.35 Proponents of this view rely chieﬂy on an analysis of the methods of redaction and the reconstruction of the literary process which gave rise to the composition that we know. But it is obvious that in certain cases the author of the Book of Kings relied on the prophetic stories in composing his work.36 Thus, for example, the author learned about the sins of Ahab and his son Ahaziah from the Elijah story cycle (1 Kgs 17–19; 2Kgs 1), and so described them as the worst sinners in the history of the kingdom of Israel. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, was closely connected to the Omride dynasty, and even married his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of Omri/Ahab (2Kgs 8:18,26), so ostensibly the author would have had good reason to consider him a sinful king. Yet the prophetic stories about Jehoshaphat’s ﬁdelity to YHWH in the two wars he took part in (1 Kgs 22; 2Kgs 3), decided the case, and he described Jehoshaphat as a king who did that 35 J.M. Miller, “The Elisha Cycle and the Accounts of the Omride Wars,” JBL 85 (1966), pp. 441–454; H.-C. Schmitt, Elisa. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur vorklassischen nordisraelitischen Prophetie (Gütersloh, 1972); S.L. McKenzie, The Trouble with Kings. The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History (Leiden, 1991), pp. 90– 98; H.-J. Stipp, Elischa—Propheten -Gottesmänner: Die Kompositionsgeschichte des Elischazyklus und verwandter Texte, rekonstruiert auf der Basis von Text- und Literarkritik zu 1 Kön 20.22 und 2 Kön 2–7, ATSAT 24 (St. Ottilien, 1987); id., “Ahabs Busse und die Komposition des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks,” Biblica 76 (1995), pp. 471–497; Otto (n. 31 – 2001); id. (n. 31 – 2003). 36 Na"aman (n. 22), pp. 153–173.

the temple library and the composition of the book

149

which was right in the eyes of YHWH (1 Kgs 22:43). He also deduced from the description of those two wars of Jehoshaphat’s, “his might that he showed, and how he warred” (1 Kgs 22:45). Similarly, the author learned about the sins of Joram, son of Ahab, from the description of the reform of Jehu, who destroyed the house of Baal and annihilated his worship—signifying that the cult had persisted in Joram’s reign. So, too, were Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, and his son Ahaziah described as sinful kings, not only because they were closely aﬃliated with Joram, Ahab’s son, but also because the story about the revolt of Jehoiada and the crowning of Joash mentioned the house of Baal in Jerusalem that was demolished in the reform (2 Kgs 11:18). From all the above, it is evident that at least part of the prophetic stories about the Omride dynasty was among the sources available to the author, who utilized them in composing his work. Only one prophetic story from the kingdom of Judah has been preserved—that of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in the reign of Hezekiah, and the central role played by the prophet Isaiah in the events (2 Kgs 18:17–19:37). Enormous amount of scholarly literature have been written about this episode, and this is not the place to discuss it in detail. Suﬃce it to say that the early story comprised the section 18:17–19:9a,36–37, and that only this story was included in the history. This early story was expanded during the exile into an account of the second Assyrian expedition to Jerusalem and the dramatic intervention by the God of Israel to turn the course of events (19:9b-36), which altered the scope of the story and its theological messages.37 The early story comprised the Rab-shakeh’s two speeches before the walls of Jerusalem, Hezekiah’s response, the appeal to the prophet and the prophet’s message of hope, which came to be fulﬁlled—the Assyrian army heard a “rumour”, withdrew from Jerusalem and returned to its country, where Sennacherib was murdered by his sons. This story was written some decades before the author, and served him as an important source, both for the positive view of Hezekiah and for the description of the consequences of the Assyrian campaign against Judah. All in all, there is no doubt that the author of the Book of Kings used the prophetic stories to complete his work. He also deduced from them B.S. Childs, Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis (London, 1967), pp. 103–169; F.J. Gonçalves, L’expédition de Sennachérib en Palestine dans la littérature hébraïque ancienne (Louvainla-neuve, 1986), pp. 331–487, with earlier literature; N. Na"aman, “New Light on Hezekiah’s Second Prophetic Story,” Biblica 81 (2000), pp. 393–402. 37

150

nadav na"aman

how the personae behaved and what they did, which enabled him to describe in detail the sins of the kings of the Omride dynasty. But he found no such stories concerning the kings of the dynasties of Baasha and Jehu, and was obliged to describe their conduct in cultic matters brieﬂy and schematically in the preambles to their histories. Finally, it is noteworthy that the author was sometimes mistaken about the dates that he ascribed to the prophetic stories, and integrated them in the wrong places. This is especially the case with the cycle of Elisha stories, which is interpolated in the history of Joram, son of Ahab, though this prophet lived in the reigns of the dynasty of Jehu, and the cycle actually reﬂected the time when Israel was subjugated to Aram. It is important to keep in mind that from the moment a story was inset in the reign of a particular king, the author drew conclusions from it regarding that king and his ﬁdelity to YHWH.38

Concluding Remarks Establishing the possible origin of the source material used by an author is only the ﬁrst step in the critical evaluation of his composition. Some texts might have been composed shortly after the related events, while others were written long after the events they describe and were based on old oral traditions. Some sources (such as king-lists and chronicles) are easily exploited for the historical reconstruction, while others are written in genres that are not easily applicable to the reconstruction. We may further note that the historical-critical approach of the kind developed in Greece since the classical period was alien to biblical authors, as it was to all other scribes who worked in the ancient Near East. Source criticism is unknown in the East before the Hellenistic period; the author must have given equal credibility to all his sources. For this reason we ﬁnd concrete details and dry accounts side by side 38 The story of the war between the king of Israel and Ben-Hadad of Aram in 1 Kings 20 is attributed to the reign of Ahab, but reﬂects the situation of the reign of Joash, son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. See A. Jepsen, “Israel und Damascus,” AfO 14 (1942), pp. 154–158; Miller (n. 35), pp. 441–454; E. Lipinski, ´ “Le Ben-Hadad de la Bible et l’histoire,” Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies I (Jerusalem, 1972), pp. 157–173. It seems, however, that the story in 1Kings 20 is post-Deuteronomistic, and was interpolated in the Book of Kings at a late date. I have found a similar view in: A. Rofé, Introduction to the Historical Literature of the Hebrew Bible (Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 93–97 (Hebrew).

the temple library and the composition of the book

151

with legendary, novelistic and fabulous narratives. The Book of Kings is founded—with no distinction—on the oral literature and written sources available to its author. Let me survey in brief the assumed sources used by the author in writing the history of the two kingdoms. Limited number of sources was available to him for writing the history of the Northern Kingdom. His most important sources were probably the work called ‘the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel’ and prophetic stories. The former must have been a chronicle that combined material extracted from early sources (such as a kinglist with notes on the changes of dynasties). It must have included the names of kings, their years and dynasties, details of the rebellions and the overthrow of dynasties, and sporadic events relating to some Israelite kings (such as the wars with the Arameans and Assyrians). The author might have derived some data from books of the 8th century prophets, in particular the Book of Amos, thereby supplementing his limited sources of the Northern Kingdom.39 The source material available for the history of Judah in the late 10th–8th centuries was richer than that of Israel. The king-list included such exceptional details as the names of the queen-mothers and the age of the kings when they ascended the throne. They might have served for the reading of the names of all the past Judahite kings and their principal wives, the mothers of their successors, from the founder of the dynasty (David) down to the parents of the reigning king. Details concerning the relations of the kings of Judah and Israel were probably extracted from prophetic stories and the “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah”. Some synchronisms between the kings of Israel and Judah were extracted from sources, but most of them were computed by the author. Finally, the author might have derived some information from a few royal inscriptions erected in the temple of Jerusalem and worked it into his composition.40 The author of the ﬁrst edition of Kings (Dtr1) lived not long after the seventh century kings of Judah, so that no written sources should 39 B. Gosse, “Le recueil d’oracles contre les nations du livre d’Amos et l’histoire deuteronomique,” VT 38 (1988), pp. 22–40; N. Na"aman, The Past that Shapes the Present. The Creation of Biblical Historiography in the Late First Temple Period and After the Downfall, Yeriot 3 (Jerusalem, 2002), pp. 98–102 (Hebrew). 40 N. Na"aman, “Royal Inscriptions and the Histories of Joash and Ahaz, Kings of Judah,” VT 48 (1998), pp. 333–349. For criticism, see S.B. Parker, “Did the Author of the Books of Kings Make Use of Royal Inscriptions,” VT 50 (2000), pp. 357–378.

152

nadav na"aman

be sought for the history of Manasseh, Amon and Josiah. The history he wrote closes with the restoration of the temple and Josiah’s religious reform, culminating with the celebration of the Passover (2Kgs 23:21– 23). The episode of Josiah’s death and the history of Judah until the destruction and exile were written by a late author of the same ideological school (Dtr2).41 The late author lived in Babylonia, and completed the early work up to his own time on the basis of the vivid memory of the described events. This author also revised the work of his predecessor in an eﬀort to adapt its messages to the circumstances that has arisen after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, with the exile of the royal house and the elite to Babylonia. It goes without saying that only part of the material immersed in the Book of Kings may be used for writing a history of Israel according to “western” standards. When discussing the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the late 10th–8th centuries BCE it is necessary to separate the sources available to the author from the texts that he wrote and, as far as possible, to try to establish the reconstruction on these sources. The history of the kingdom of Judah from the time of Manasseh to the destruction and exile is based on the vivid memories of the author (Dtr1) and his successor who wrote in Babylonia (Dtr2), and thus many details included in the last chapters of the Book of Kings seem reliable. Finally, modern historians should never forget that biblical historiography was written primarily in order to shape the present and to deliver religious and ideological messages to its readers and hearers. This ideological-theological objective requires a critical approach for all texts, whether they describe the early or the late history of Israel.

41

The episodes of Gedaliah in Mizpah and the release of Jehoiachin from his prison (2 Kgs. 25:22–30) were probably added by a late redactor.

DER REIßENDE WOLF—JOSUA IN ÜBERLIEFERUNG UND GESCHICHTE

Ed Noort „Schon die Urteile über Art und Wert der literarischen Überlieferungen im Alten Testament, an denen der Name Josuas haftet, gehen … bedenklich weit auseinander, und vollends unerträglich wird die Verschiedenheit der Auﬀassungen bei den Versuchen, auf Grund der so oder so beurteilten Überlieferungen und über sie hinaus die Person und das Werk Josuas historisch zu rekonstruieren. … Mir scheint es richtiger, zu erneuter Besinnung darüber aufzurufen, ob wir nicht hier wie andertwärts durch strengere Bindung an die uns gegebenen Erkenntnismöglichkeiten zu größerer Einheitlichkeit und Haltbarkeit unserer Anschauungen gelangen könnten.“1 Hier redet nicht einer im methodischen Wirrwarr unserer Tage, sondern diese programmatischen Sätze sprach Albrecht Alt auf der zweiten2 Internationalen Alttestamentlertagung in Göttingen im September 1935 vor nun fast siebzig Jahren. Die Beurteilung Alts würde heute auf mehr Skepsis stoßen als damals. Was für Alt unerträglich war, ist munter weiter gewuchert. Gleichwohl wäre sein Aufruf zur Besinnung auf die Erkenntnismöglichkeiten auch heutzutage angemessen. Und der scharfsinnig herauspräparierte eigene Entwurf, den Alt 1935 präsentierte, ist lange mit Zustimmung rezipiert worden. Er fand3 für den Aufstieg Josuas historisch verwertbares Material in der Gibeonschlacht Jos. 10:1–11.15, bei der Schlichtung im Streit um den Besitzanspruch des Hauses Josephs 17:14–18 und möglicherweise bei der Entscheidung 1 A. Alt, „Josua“, in: J. Hempel u. a. (Hg.), Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments. Vorträge gehalten auf der internationalen Tagung alttestamentlicher Forscher zu Göttingen vom 4.-10. September, 1935, BZAW 66 (Berlin, 1936), pp. 13–29 (hier p. 13) = A. Alt, Kleine Schriften I (München, 1953, 41968), pp. 176–192. Eine ausführliche Berichterstattung über die Tagung ﬁndet sich: ZAW 53 (1935), pp. 293–310. 2 Die erste Tagung fand September, 1927 unter Auspizien der Society for Old Testament Study in Oxford statt. Ein Bericht von deutscher Seite: ZAW 45 (1927), pp. 229f. 3 Nach Ausscheidung unhistorischer und Bewertung vor allem ätiologischer Elemente in Jos. 2–9.

154

ed noort

für JHWH in 24. Auch die Grabtradition 24:30 könne historisch ausgewertet werden. Für Martin Noth dagegen war Josua nicht unbedingt in Jos. 10 verwurzelt, in 17 war er 1938 „vielleicht überlieferungsgeschichtlich ursprünglich“4, 1953 sogar „vielleicht tief verwurzelt“5, und in 24 hat er „tatsächlich eine entscheidende Rolle gespielt.“6 „Vergleicht man die Ergebnisse Alts und Noths miteinander, so nimmt im Blick auf die Rolle Josuas bei Alt die historische Wahrscheinlichkeit in den Kap. 10 f., 17 und 24 ab, während sie bei Noth zunimmt“, so formuliert H. Schmid 1968 zurecht.7 Das Ende dieses Forschungsstadiums ist mit der Darstellung Donners in seiner Geschichte Israels (21995) wohl erreicht, wenn er konstatiert: „In diesem Falle wäre der historische Josua ein Kriegsmann gewesen, der im Spätstadium der Landnahme Ephraims und Benjamins. … eine bedeutende Rolle spielte.“8 Denn inzwischen hatten sich die Gewichte erheblich verschoben. Daß die Landnahme—in der Zeit, als man dieses Wort noch benutzen durfte—nicht im Josuabuch stand, war der Forschung mindestens seit den dreißiger Jahren des 20 Jh. bewußt. Die Suche nach der Spiegelung historischer Begebenheiten war damit aber noch lange nicht zu Ende. So können im Rückblick leicht drei Phasen beobachtet werden, in denen das Porträt Josuas andere Züge annahm. In der ersten Phase wird er als ephraimitischen Heerführer9 und Richter10 verortet, während man andere Züge—weil nicht ursprünglich—diesen diachron untergeordnete. In einer zweiten Phase wird festgestellt, daß

M. Noth, Josua, HAT I/7 (Tübingen, 1938), p. 78. M. Noth, Josua, HAT I/7 (Tübingen, 21953), p. 106. 6 Noth, 1953, p. 136. 7 H. Schmid, „Erwägungen zur Gestalt Josuas in Überlieferung und Geschichte“, Judaica 24 (1968), pp. 44-57, hier 46. Er sieht in Josua keinen Ephraimiten, sondern einen im ostjordanischen beheimateten (Schittim?) „Mann des Jahwekrieges“ (p. 53). 8 H. Donner, Geschichte des Volkes Israel und seiner Nachbarn in Grundzügen 1, ATD 4/1 (Göttingen, 21995), p. 150. 9 K. Möhlenbrink, „Die Landnahmesagen des Buches Josua“, ZAW 56 (1938), pp. 238-268, hier p. 245; ders., „Josua im Pentateuch“, ZAW 59 (1942-1943), pp. 14-58. Selbständiger Shilo- (Jos. 3 f.*; 5:13 ﬀ,; 6*; 8:30–35; 9*:24*; 22) neben einem benjaminitischen Gilgalsagenkranz. 10 J.A. Soggin, Joshua, OTL (London, 1972), pp. 14–18. Josua sei ein in der benjaminitischer Tradition (Gilgal) zuhause seiender ephraimitischer „Richter“, „because he was a well-known person who had been active either militarily or in resolving controversies between the regions.“ 4 5

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 155 diese historische Verortung wenig Überzeugungskraft und Nutzen hat11, während in der dritten Phase12 die Beschreibung von Plots, Modellen, Charakteren und Idealtypen13 die alte Queeste ablöst—manchmal nicht ohne Häme über die früheren Forschungsperioden. Sie sind die Kehrseite einer Entwicklung, in der Martin Noths einsamer Deuteronomist14 sich in zahllose bearbeitende Hände15 aufgelöst hat und das zeitgeschichtlich bedingte (1943!) Schuldbekenntnis der Stunde Null16, der Bußruf 17 und oder die zaghaften Hoﬀnungsschimmer18 der alten Frage nach dem Hexateuch und dem Enneateuch19 gewichen ist. Welche Bilder werden nun im biblischen Material in einer tentativen Chronologie selbst sichtbar? Josua, der mittelpalästinische Stammesführer (Jos. 6*:8*,10*) in der benjaminitischen Überlieferung mit einem Grab im ephraimitischen 11 M. Görg, Josua, NEB (Würzburg, 1991), p. 8. Josua ist „als Leitﬁgur für Israel in die Geschichte eingegangen. Diese Wirklichkeit ist über jede historische erhaben“. Im Josuakommentar von V. Fritz, HAT I/7 (Tübingen, 1994) handelt es sich um ein ausschließlich literarisches Bild. Auch „das Grab [kann] keineswegs als traditionsgeschichtlicher Haftpunkt der Josuagestalt angesehen werden“ (p. 250). 12 Von wenigen beachtet nahm M.A. Beek, 1971 (M.A. Beek, „Josua und Retterideal“, in: H.Goedicke (ed.), Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (Baltimore/London, 1971), pp. 35–42, hier p. 42) mit einer kühnen These Abstand von den bisherigen Versuchen. Der Name Josua spiele mit dem Verb òÖé. Und im Richterbuch läßt JHWH immer wieder einen òéÖåî erstehen. Das Buch Josua sei der Entwurf eines Programms: das Buch soll die Lücke zwischen dem schon vorhandenen Richterbuch und dem Pentateuch schließen. Josua ist der wahre und gehorsame Retter. „Damals nach dem Exil war die Zeit reif für den Entwurf des idealen òéÖåî und er wurde in die Gestalt des Jehoˇsua hinein projiziert. Er hatte ein ganzes Volk in einem Land um eine Thora versammelt und er hatte es vermocht, mit Hilfe von und in Gehorsamkeit an JHWH.“ 13 L.D. Hawk, Joshua, Berit Olam (Collegeville/ Min, 2000), xixf.; P.J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History. Proﬁles of Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, JSOT.Suppl 224 (Sheﬃeld, 1996); Chr. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Josua und Salomo. Eine Studie zu Autorität und Legitimität des Nachfolgers im Alten Testament, SVT 58 (Leiden/New York, 1995). 14 M.Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien (Halle/S, 1943), p. 110. 15 Als Beispiele: R. Achenbach, Die Vollendung der Tora. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Penteuch, BZABR 3 (Wiesbaden, 2003); E. Aurelius, Zukunft jenseits des Gerichts. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Studie zum Enneateuch, BZAW 319 (Berlin/New York, 2003). 16 Noth, 1943, 108. 17 H.W. Wolﬀ, „Das Kerygma des dtr. Geschichtswerkes“, ZAW 73 (1971), pp.171– 186 = Gesammelte Studien, ThB 22 (München, 1964), pp. 308–324. 18 G. von Rad, Deuteronomium-Studien, FRLANT 58 (Göttingen, 1947). 19 R. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments, UTB 2157 (Göttingen, 2000) und n. 15.

156

ed noort

Gebiet (Jos. 24:29 f.), Josua, der Eroberer des Westjordanlandes und Befehlshaber Gesamtisraels (Jos. 2*; 3*; 4*;12*), der Landverteiler (Jos. 11:23a bis „Israel“) für die Stämme (Jos. 11:23 Ergänzung: „entsprechend seiner Einteilung in Stämme“; 13:8–19:49*) und Schlichter ihrer Streitigkeiten (Jos. 17:14–18). Josua, der zweite nach Mose (Dtn. 31: 7,8, Num. 27: 18–23), der ideale Nachfolger (Dtn. 34:9), der Inbegriﬀ des Goldenen Zeitalters des biblischen Israels (Ri. 2:7–9). Josua, der die Entscheidung für JHWH in Sichem herbeiführt (Jos. 24:14– 15); Josua, der Fluchmächtige (1 Kön. 16:34; Jos. 6:26) und Prophet (Jos. 24:2). Josua, der Prediger, der Thoraobservant (Jos. 8:30–35); Josua, der (Kult)diener des Mose (Ex. 24:13; 33:11; Num. 6:3; 11:28; Jos. 1:1). Josua, der von Mose umbenannte Kundschafter (Num. 13:16b;14:6,30,38). In der nachbiblischen Rezeptionsgeschichte sind es vor allem die Bilder von Josua als Heerführer, als Prophet, als Thoralehrer und als König20, die verstärkt werden. Für den Heerführer ist Flavius Josephus ein wichtiger Zeuge.21 Feldman22 hat das Porträt Josuas bei Josephus nachgezeichnet und dabei auf das Bild des idealen Staatsmannes bei Thucydides hingewiesen. Das ist nicht falsch, aber die dem Josua nachgesagten Eigenschaften: tapfer, widerstandsfähig, intelligent, eloquent, fromm und geschätzt von den Israeliten (AJ 3,49), ergänzt von der Feststellung, daß er imstande war, sich klar auszudrücken, und daß er auch in Friedenszeiten ein gerechter Führer war (5,118), rahmen die eigentliche Josua-Erzählung, ergänzen und summieren was er getan hat. Aber bei diesem Tun ist seine Hauptbeschäftigung und Hauptaufgabe der Krieg. Er ist der στρατηγς Israels. So wird er eingesetzt von Mose (3,51 = Ex. 17), damit erwirbt er sich Ruhm (3,59). Auﬀällig ist dabei, daß Eleasar gerade bei dieser Amtseinsetzung, anders als in Num. 27:2123, keine Rolle spielt. Eleasar ist wichtig, wenn es um die Volksversammlung geht, um die Opfer, 20 Die in der Exegese beliebte Parallelisierung Josua /Josia ist aufzugeben. Vor allem weil die dabei vorausgesetzten Eroberungen Josias historisch nicht nachgewiesen werden können. Sein Tod in Megiddo zeigt mitnichten, daß er den Norden beherrschte. 21 B. Niese (ed.), Flavii Iosephi Opera, I+II (Berlin, 1885/1887); E. Nodet (ed.), Flavius Josèphe, Les Antiquités juives. Texte, traduction et notes, Livres I–III (Paris, 22003 [1992]); IV–V (Paris, 22004 [1995]). 22 L.H. Feldman, „Josephus’ Portrait of Joshua“, HTR 82 (1989), pp. 351–376. 23 E. Noort, „Numbers 27,21: the priestly oracle Urim and Tummim and the History of Reception“, in: H.L.J. Vanstiphout, a.o., All those Nations … Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East, COMERS/ICOG Communications 2, (Groningen, 1999), pp. 109–116.

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 157 aber von einer Überordnung Eleasars ist nicht die Rede. Die militärische Rolle Josuas wird durch die Handlungsdarstellung des Josephus noch verstärkt. Gottesreden und Befehle, die militärische Aktionen im Josuabuch anordnen, werden bei Josephus zu eigenen Handlungen Josuas. Er selber ist der Initiator. Josua selber ruft das Volk zu einem Feldzug auf (AJ 5,1 = Jos. 1), führt es durch den Jordan (5,17 = Jos. 3f.), beschließt Jericho zu belagern (5,22), ergreift die Initiative für die Eroberung Ais (5,35) und schlägt es (5,45–48). Ohne Gottesrede (MT 10:8) kommt Josua Gibeon zu Hilfe (5,60) und erfährt erst bei der Verfolgung Gottes Hilfe (5,60). In der Summa seiner Funktionen erwähnt Josephus an erster Stelle, daß Josua nach dem Tode des Mose 25 Jahre lang στρατηγς (5,117) war. Zwar ist deutlich, daß στρατηγς bei Josephus funktionell eine breitere Bedeutung haben kann als der speziﬁsche Militärführer (AJ 14,158.180.280), aber der militärische Aspekt überwiegt. Auch die Rolle Josuas als Prophet wird von FlJoseph gestreift.24 Damit nimmt er einen Aspekt auf, der schon im MT angelegt ist. Hier erscheint Josua in 6:26—ausgelöst von 1 Kön. 16:34 und verstärkt durch die LXX—als Fluchmächtiger. Die Botenformel wird in der Josuarede 24:2 benutzt. Zugleich wird in Num. 11:16,17 die Geistbegabung der siebzig Ältesten25 mit prophetischer Rede—nicht Extase26—verbunden und die pentateuchischen Einsetzungstexte Josuas: Num. 27:18; Dtn. 34:9 in diesem Lichte interpretiert. Das Ergebnis ﬁndet sich Sirach 46:1: Josua ist úøÖî des Mose, aber, wie die griechische Version ganz richtig sagt, als δι"δοχος im Prophetenamt. Neben weiteren vereinzelten Belegen in der frühchristlichen, apocryphen und rabbinischen Literatur27 kommen die sprechendsten Texte aus Qumran mit 4Q175 (Testimonia) und 4Q379 als Teil des sogenannten Josua-Apocryphon28 und dem Aufsehen erregenden 4Q522, in dem Josua den Bau des Tempels unter 24 Er wird 4,165 als Nachfolger Mozes eingesetzt sowohl in dessen prophetisches Amt (und praktiziert das in 4,311 und 5,20) als auch als στρατηγς. 25 Sowie die nicht formell eingesetzten Eldad und Medad aus Num. 11: 25b–29. 26 H. Seebass, Numeri, BKAT IV/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2003), p. 31. 27 E. Noort, „Joshua: The History of Reception and Hermeneutics“, in: J.C. de Moor, H.F. van Rooy (eds.), Past, Present, Future: The Deuteronomistic History and the Prophets, OTS 44 (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2000), pp. 199–215. 28 E. Tov, „The Rewritten Book of Joshua as Found at Qumran and Masada“, in: M.E. Stone, E.G. Ghazon, Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 28 (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 1998), pp. 233–256; Noort, 2000, pp. 210–212; D. Dimant, „The Apocryphon of Joshua 4Q522 9 ii: A Reapraisal“,

158

ed noort

Salomo prophezeit29 und die Aufstellung des Zeltes in Shilo als Folge eigener Schuld deklariert, weil er die Urim und Tummim nicht befragt habe.30 Josua als Thoralehrer ist gleichfalls spät-deuteronomistisch im MT angelegt mit der Anweisung Jos. 1:7,8 und dem Dtn. 27* ausführenden Jos.8:30–35. Die Rolle wird am deutlichsten von Pseudo-Philo repräsentiert und betont.31 Beim Konﬂikt um den transjordanischen Altar betont Josua die Distanz zwischen Opferdienst und Thorastudium „Nonne fortior est rex Dominus super milia sacriﬁcia?“ (LAB XXII 5)32. Der transjordanische Altar ist nur ein „sacrarium manufactum“. Die richtige Alternative ist das Studium und das Leben mit der Thora. Mit einem zweifachen „Amen“ werden die Vorrangstellung der Thora und die Folgen für die zweieinhalb Stämme bejaht (LAB XXII 6). Heute möchte ich einige Aspekte des Josua-Bildes der samaritanischen Überlieferung33 vorstellen. Es geht dabei um das arabische Josuabuch in: Sh.M. Paul a.o.(eds), Emanuel. Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, SVT 94 (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2003), pp. 179–204. 29 4Q522 9 ii, 6. 30 4Q522 9 ii, 10. 31 E. Noort, „Der Streit um den Altar. Josua 22 und seine Rezeptionsgeschichte“, in: R. Albertz, Kult, Konﬂikt und Versöhnung, AOAT 285 (Münster, 2001), pp. 151–169; Noort, 2000, pp 199–215. 32 D.J. Harrington, J. Cazeaux, Pseudo-Philon. Les Antiquités Bibliques, Tome 1, SC 229 (Paris, 1976). 33 T.G.J. Juynboll, Chronicon Samaritanum Arabice conscriptum cui titulus est Liber Josuae. Ex unico codice Scaligeri nunc primum ed. Lat. vertit, annot. instr., (Leiden, 1848); O.T. Crane, The Samaritan Chronicle or the Book of Joshua, the Son of Nun: Translated from the Arabic: with Notes, (New York, 1890); A.D. Crown, „The Date and Authenticity of the Samaritan Hebrew Book of Joshua as Seen in the Territorial Allotments“, PEQ 96 (1964), pp. 79–100 = WdF 604 (1992), pp. 281–311 (+ Addendum, 1986); A.D. Crown, A Critical Re-Evaluation of the Samaritan Sepher Yehoshua: Vol. I–III, Diss. (Sydney, 1966); J. Macdonald, The Samaritan Chronicle No. II (or: Sepher Ha-Yamim). From Joshua to Nebuchadnezzar, BZAW 107 (Berlin, 1969); P. Stenhouse, The Kitab al Tarikh of Abu"l Fath, Mandelbaum Judaica Series 1 (Sydney, 1985); Ders., „The Reliability of the Chronicle of Abu"l-Fath: With Special Reference to the Dating of Baba Rabba“, in: J.P. Rothschild, G.D. Sixdenier (ed.), Études samaritaines Pentateuque et Targum, exégèse et philologie, chroniques, Collection de la Revue des Études Juives 6 (Louvain/Paris, 1988), pp. 235–257; J. Zsengellér, „Canon and the Samaritans“, in: A. van der Kooij, K. van der Toorn (ed.), Canonization and Decanonization, Studies in the History of Religions LXXXII (Leiden, 1998), pp. 161–171; I. Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A Literary Analysis, JSOTSuppl 303 (Sheﬃeld, 2000); ˇ F. Niessen, Eine samaritanische Version des Buches Yehoˇsua # und die Sobak-Erzählung, Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 12, (Hildesheim/Zürich/New York, 2000); A.D.Crown, Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts, Text and Studies in Ancient Judaism 80 (Tübingen,

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 159 und die Josua-Chroniken insgesamt, die Josua vor allem als Herrscher und König vorstellen. Die verwickelte und umstrittene Geschichte der Josua-Chroniken braucht hier nicht nachgezeichnet zu werden. Sie sind zum größten Teil jüngeren Datums, obwohl sie auch ältere Elemente enthalten. Gerade die Chroniken, die dem biblischen Josuabuch am nächsten sind, sind Kompilationen aus neuerer Zeit. So lange die Forschung sich nicht auf die Auﬃndung „origineller“ Josua-Elemente oder Textformen versteift, braucht dies methodisch kein Hindernis zu sein. Um einen Vergleich mit Leidener Lokalkolorit zu machen: In der Archäologie Palästinas konnte die kanonische Geltung der kunstgeschichtlich orientierten Keramiktypologie erst durchbrochen werden, nachdem Henk J. Franken hier seine keramiktechnologischen Untersuchungen vorantrieb. Und dies geschah unter anderem, indem er bei heutigen jordanischen Töpfern in die Lehre ging. So ist es—trotz der verwickelten Lage um die geschichtlichtliche Einordnung der Samaritaner in der Frühzeit—durchaus reizvoll, die Variationen, Ergänzungen und Weglassungen in den Texten einer Gruppe, die den Anspruch chronistischer Literatur pﬂegt, Gültigkeit bis in die heutige Zeit zu fundieren, und die in ihrer Struktur, ihrem Bewußtsein und ihrer Traditionspﬂege soziologisch durchaus mit Gruppen aus der Periode des zweiten Tempels vergleichbar ist, zu studieren. Gewinnbringend könnte das sein bei ihrer Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen dem weltlichen (König) und geistigen (Hohenpriester) Herrscher, bei ihrer Sicht des Königtums überhaupt, bei der Rolle, die Reformer (Baba Rabba) und Reformversuche in ihrer Geschichte gespielt und was sie bewirkt haben, bei der Freiheit und Gebundenheit, auch in der schriftlichen Überlieferung mit Tradition umzugehen, bei der Produktion von Manuskripten, ins besondere der Chroniken, bei der Darstellung von Kriegserzählungen in ihrer Situation als politische Minderheit. Ein besonderer Reiz wäre es, die Kennzeichen unserer rekonstruierten Redaktionsschichten oder die vorausgesetzte Vielzahl bearbeitender Hände zu vergleichen mit den Facetten des samaritanischen Josuabildes, den Varianten der Überlieferung und dem nachgewiesenen Zuwachs der samaritanischen Literatur nach den Reformen im 3. Jh. Heute frage ich nur nach dem Josuabild der Chroniken und nach dem Verhältnis zu den ostjordanischen Stämmen. 2001); F. Niessen, „A Judaeo-Arabic Fragment of a Samaritan Chronicle from the Cairo Geniza“, JSS 47 (2002), pp. 215–236.

160

ed noort

Obwohl es communis opinio ist, daß nur der Pentateuch zum samaritanischen Kanon gehört, ist öfter nach einer Begründung gesucht worden, weshalb das Josuabuch eine so prominente Rolle in der samaritanischen Literatur einnimmt.34 Daß Josua in früheren Zeiten wohl zum Kanon gehörte, daraus aber wegen der Benutzung des Buches durch jüdische messianische Bewegungen und wegen der christlichen JosuaJesus Typologie35 entfernt wurde, ist weniger wahrscheinlich. Josua ist neben der Traditionskette der Hohenpriester sachlich unentbehrlich. Josua vertritt den weltlichen Herrscher, der in völliger Eintracht mit dem Hohenpriester Eleasar die Geschicke des Volkes bestimmt. Er ist der prophetische Nachfolger des Mose, in und mit ihm werden die Landverheißungen erfüllt. Er rezitiert die Thora, er (oder auch Eleasar) verschriftlicht sie auf den Steinen des Altars, errichtet das Heiligtum auf dem Garizim. Josua verwirklicht so die göttliche Präsenz. Er hat die wahre Gemeinde an den wahren Ort geführt und bekommt den Königstitel (êìî) zugesprochen. Aber nicht nur die räumliche Dimension der Erfüllung der Landverheißung ist wichtig, sondern auch die chronologische. In einer den MT Richterbuch übersteigenden Periodisierung36 ﬁndet Josuas Herrschaft statt in der Zeit der äúåçø/arab. rid. w¯an, der göttlichen Zuwendung oder des Wohlgefallens. Diese mit Mose (Asatir) oder mit Josua (IV) beginnende Periode, in der die göttliche Präsenz mittels des Heiligtums

34 Die für die Josuagestalt wichtigen Samaritanischen Chroniken sind: 1. Leiden Or. 249: Liber Josue (Juynboll, 1848; Crane, 1890; Macdonald, 1969=Chron IV[Arab]); 2. die Chronik des "Abu "l-Fath. (Stenhouse, 1985; Macdonald, 1969= Chron VI)[Arab] 3. Die hebräischen Chroniken JR(G) 863, 864, 1167 (Crown, 1966) + Chronique Adler /Sefer Hayamim (Hebr) 4. Die Samaritanische Chronik II JR(G) 1142 (Ryl.Sam 257 = HS1:1b–83b [Sam-Hebr]: Macdonald, 1969); JR(G) 1168 (Ryl.Sam 259 = HS2 8b– 53a [Hebr-Aram]: Gaster, 1927; Niessen, 2000); T-S NS 188.20 (Geniza Fragment ˇ Sobak [Jud-Arab]: Niessen, 2002). Die unter John Rylands Library, Gaster Collection [JR(G)] genannten Mss. sind inzwischen rekatalogisiert. Hier werden die bekannten, von MacDonald eingeführten Sigla benutzt. 35 J. Zsengellér, „Canon and the Samaritans“ in: A. van der Kooij, K. van der Toorn (eds.), Canonization and Decanonization, Studies in the History of Religions 89 (Leiden, 1998), pp. 161–171, hier p. 168. 36 Danach fängt die an Dtn 32:20 (íéðô øúñ) orientierte Zeit der göttlichen Abwendung (äúåðô) an, die bis zum Kommen des eschatologischen Propheten, des Taheb, dauern wird. Kern der Überlieferung ist die Periodisierung von Mose/Josua bis Eli, die systematisiert und nach vorne und hinten extrapoliert wird. In der Letztgestalt umfasst sie vier [sechs] Perioden: ø: Schöpfung/Paradies bis zum Fall; ô: Fall bis zum Mose/Josua; ø: Mose/Josua bis zu Eli; ô: Eli bis zum Erscheinen des Taheb; [ø Vom Erscheinen des Taheb bis zum Ende des Äons; ô Vom Ende des Äons bis zum letzten Gericht].

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 161 auf dem Garizim manifest wird, endet mit dem falschen Priester Eli, der das Heiligtum nach Schilo verlegt. Von nun an verﬁnstert sich die politische und religiöse Lage. Es ist dieser Kontrastierung zu verdanken, daß das Josuabuch eine solche hervorragende Position einnimmt, während die Sam. und Kön. Bücher, die die Zeit des Abfalls beschreiben, eklektisch benutzt werden. Das Josuabild ist schillernd, zugleich aber in seiner bunten Vielfalt konsistent. Die Investitur des Josua bindet Num. 27:18–23 (nicht aber 15– 16) und Dtn. 31:7 f., 14,23; 34:9 zusammen. Der Übergang von Mose37 auf Josua wird in der Überlieferung unterschiedlich gestaltet und betont sowohl die Unvergleichbarkeit des Mose und damit die Kluft, als auch die Kontinuität die im Halten der Thora begründet ist. Ornamente sind die angekündigte Wiederkunft des Mose (IV vi), und die künftige Ablösung der Zeit der Zuwendung (äúåçø) durch die Zeit der Abwendung (äúåðô, II HS2 4a.5a). Der Übergang zur Gottesrede (Jos. 1:2–9) wird narrativ ausgeschmückt und hat eine eigene Zuspitzung. Als die Kanaaniter durch die laute Beweinung vom Tode des Mose erfahren und Israel hart zusetzen möchten, verspricht JHWH jetzt mit Josua zu sein, wie er mit Mose war (IV viii; II HS2 9a 15). Aber Israel soll auf dem von Mose gewiesenen Weg der Wahrheit bleiben (II HS2 8b 24; 9a 16 f.). Die Landzusage wird abgekürzt und abgeändert, das Lesen der Thora betont (II HS2 9a 25 f.). Die Rede des Josua (MT 1:10) ist in einer Version (II HS1) knapp gehalten, in einer anderen (IV und II HS2) werden Motive aus Jos. 23 und 24 vermischt. Segen, wenn Israel bei dem Bund mit JHWH bleibt, Fluch wenn es davon abweicht. Im Namen JHWHs erneuert (IV 10–12; II HS2 10a 13; 10b 20: ùéãç úéøáä) Josua den Bund, der ausdrücklich als „der zweite Bund (úéøáä éðùä) mit euch, zusätzlich (óñàî) zu dem Bund, den Mose mit euch geschlossen hat“ IV 10; Niessen 2000,148; 10a 25 f.), gekennzeichnet wird. Nach der Erneuerung des Bundes bringt Josua die Opfer dar (sic), Eleasar segnet das Volk.

37 Das Ende des Mose wird unterschiedlich gestaltet. Nach IV vi trennt eine Feuersäule Mose von Josua, Eleasar und den weiteren Begleitern, nach HS2 richtet Josua nochmals das Wort an ihn (6b), bittet das Volk vergeblich um eine weitere Stunde seines Verbleibens (6b.7a) und verbirgt ihn eine Wolke (7b). In einer Grotte versetzt JHWH Mose in einen Tiefschlaf (äîéãøú Gen. 2:21; 15:12) und sein Atem (äîùðà) verlässt ihn zusammen mit seinem „heiligen Geist“ (äùã÷ä çåø) (8a).

162

ed noort

Die nebst Kap. 9 wohl schönste Erzählung des Josuabuches, die Geschichte von den Kundschaftern und Rahab, ist in IV und II HS2 narrativ erweitert worden. Wie die Gibeoniter in Jos. 9 verwenden die Kundschafter einen List. Sie stellen sich selbst den Kanaanitern als Kriegsgefangene Israels dar. Sie seien gar keine echten Israeliten. Deren neuer Herrscher ist anders als der Prophet Mose: „wir sahen seinen ﬂammenden Zorn, er ist ein Riese von Mann (øåáâ ùéà), sein Schelten zerbricht die Seelen, und er verwundet die Herzen“.38 Er verfügt über außerordentliche Kenntnisse. Er wußte Bescheid über die Vorfahren der beiden, über ihre Herkunft, über ihre Städte. Wenn die beiden Kundschafter ihm und seinem Gott aus Furcht vertrauen (IV xiii), lässt er dies nicht gelten. Nicht Furcht soll der Grund des Vertrauens sein. Er gibt ihnen und den Bewohnern des Landes eine Woche, damit sie ﬂiehen können (II HS2 13a 28–13b 1). Der König wird zum Propheten mit der Ankündigung, daß das Wasser des Jordans stillstehen wird, damit Israel hindurchziehen kann. Erst dann wird— rhetorisch geschickt—der Name dieses neuen Königs mitgeteilt. Er sei Josua, der Amalek besiegte (Ex. 17:13), Sihon tötete (Num. 21:24; Dtn 2:24,30,32 f.), Og vertilgte (Num. 21:35; Dtn. 3:2f.) und Midian (Num. 25:16; IV 1) (IV xiii+ Moab) vernichtete, wobei die Rolle des Mose großzügig auf Josua übertragen wird. Die Botschaft der beiden endet mit dem Aufruf, daß wer ﬂiehen kann, ﬂiehen soll. Erst nach dieser IV xiii und II HS2 gemeinsamen psychologischen Kriegsführung setzt die eigentliche Rahab-Erzählung ein. Die Mittel dieser narrativen Erweiterung sind deutlich. Die erschreckende, zornige, tapfere Seite des Helden wird vergrößert, zugleich aber auch seine Möglichkeit, Menschen zu durchschauen, und seine Weisheit. Der kompilatorische Charakter dieser Chroniken stellt sich deutlich heraus. Zur Verstärkung der Rolle Josuas übernimmt er Eroberungen des Mose, singt dessen Schilfmeerlied (Ex. 15:1–18) und fügt noch Schöpfungs- und Thorapreislieder hinzu. MT 5:2–9 fehlt in den sam. Josuatexten. Eine Beschneidung ﬁndet demnach in Gilgal nicht statt. Die Erscheinung des Heerführers JHWHs wird organisch mit Jos. 6 verbunden. Auﬀälliges Detail ist die Erwähnung (nur HS2 18b 23), dass Josua die Erscheinung in dessen (welche?) „eigener Sprache anredet“.39 Niessen, 2000, 151; 13a 12–15. Niessen, 2000, 228 weist auf die Sprachbegabung Josuas hin, der auch den Brief ˇ des Sobak ohne Dolmetscher lesen kann (HS2 38b 20f.). 38 39

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 163 Nach der Eroberung Jerichos schließt IV den Diebstahl des zuerst anonymen Mannes direkt an. Der Abschnitt endet mit dem Zorn JHWHs, der nicht näher speziﬁziert wird. Achan/#Ilan handelt nicht nur aus Habgier, sondern er stiehlt ein ihn fesselndes Götzenbild aus einem Tempel und wird damit selbst zum Götzendiener. IV beschreibt die Wahrheitsﬁndung in einer Sitzung vor Eleasar. Die Urim und Tummim sind hier durch Ex. 28:30 zum Bestandteil des hohenpriesterlichen Gewandes und von dort zu den Steinen auf der Brustplatte des Hohenpriesters avanciert. Der Gottesbescheid zeigt sich durch Auﬂeuchten und Dunkelwerden der Steine, wie wir es auch bei FlJos kennen. So wird Achan/#Ilan überführt. Neben den Variationen bei den Objekten, die Achan/#Ilan stiehlt, gibt es einen Zusatz in dem Schuldbekenntnis Achans/#Ilans. In der Selbstbezichtigung gesteht er, gegen den Bund JHWHs und seines Mannes (II HS2; Var. „seines Gesandten“ [IV] sc. Mose) verstoßen zu haben (MT 7:11,15; HS2 21b als Vorwurf in der JHWH-Rede Nach der Hinrichtung Achans schliesst IV xix mit der Gibeonitergeschichte an. Es gibt keine Ai-Erzählung mit einem anfänglichem Mißlingen. In II (HS1 und HS2) wird der Zorn Gottes wohl durch eine erste Niederlage in Ai/Rogib oﬀenbar. Die Schuldﬁndung ist aber die Gleiche. Hier werden sowohl Urim und Tummim gesondert (HS1) genannt, als auch als die leuchtenden Steine auf der Brustplatte gedeutet (HS2). In beiden Versionen folgt nach der Hinrichtung Achans/#Ilans der Sieg über Ai. MT 8:30–35 ﬁndet selbstverständlich auf dem Garizim statt, nachdem die sich dort beﬁndlichen Orte (Luza: Verwechslung mit Samaria) erobert und mit dem Bann geschlagen sind (HS2 22a) und die Lade nach Elon Moreh (Sichem//Garizim) gebracht worden ist. Josua baut den Altar und bringt darauf Brand- und Friedensopfer dar (HS2 23b 6 ﬀ.; Var HS1 §L = MT 8:31 sie = die Israeliten Subj.) Eleasar dagegen, schreibt die Thora auf zwölf Steine, die mit reinem Kalk überzogen sind (HS2 23b/24a 23 ﬀ.). Das bedeutet, daß die redaktionelle Verbindung zwischen Dtn. 27: (2,3,)4,8 einerseits und 5–7 andererseits, die dazu führte, daß die Thora auf die Steine des Altars geschrieben wurde, wie es Jos. 8:32 in Anlehnung an die Vv 30 f. auch verstanden hat, nicht befolgt wird. Abgesehen von der Rollenverteilung, die in Dtn. 27 so nicht vorhanden ist, hat HS2 die zweifellos ursprüngliche Absicht von Dtn. verstanden und wiedergegeben (HS1 weniger eindeutig). Wohl weiss HS1 L B* zu berichten, daß JHWH selbst das Feuer auf den Altar sandte (1 Kön. 18:38). In IV fehlt Jos. 8:30–35 MT. HS2 24a

164

ed noort

ändert MT 8:34 f. insoweit ab, dass nicht Josua sondern die Leviten das „heilige Buch der Thora“ vortragen. Dieser Höhepunkt der äúåçø wird beim Sprechen des Segens materialisiert: die Boten des Wohlgefallens werden sichtbar, JHWHs ãåáë erscheint und jedem wird klar, dass der Garizim der auserwählte Berg ist (HS2 24b). Bei der anschließenden List der Gibeoniter (Jos. 9) fehlt die im MT sichtbare Zurückhaltung bei der Schuldzuweisung an Josua (MT 9:7,14). Hier ist es Josua, der die Verhandlungen führt und den Bund schließt (IV xx; HS2 26b 27a; HS1 N 6 + Eleasar). Im Anschluß am MT 9:27 sind nach II HS1§N die Gibeoniter Holzhacker und Wasserschöpfer für den Altar JHWHs und für die Einwohner der Orte am oder in der Nähe des Heiligen Berges. Der Bezug zum Altar ist in II HS2 27b überhaupt nicht vorhanden, ebensowenig wie in IV, die Gibeoniter werden schlicht Sklaven der Israeliten. Die dann folgende Episode der südlichen Koalition, die gegen Gibeon und seine Verbündeten anrückt (MT 10:1–15,16–27) und die Summa der Eroberung des ganzen Landes (MT 10:28–43; 11:1–22) bietet auﬀällige Abweichungen. Das rezeptionsgeschichtlich wichtige Sonnenwunder (MT 10:12–14) fehlt. Es spielt, mit einigen Ausnahmen (beiläuﬁg IV xx, thematischer Verweis xxi), keine Rolle (II HS1 O 12; HS2 28a). Das heißt aber nicht, daß es unbekannt war. Im Antwortbrief ˇ des Josua in der Sobak-Erzählung wird erwähnt: „daß ich in meinem Gebet Gott… anrief, der möge den Tag verlängern und er …mein Schreien annahm und mir den Tag zweimal wie eine ganze Woche machte?“40. Zweitens fehlt die MT strukturierende íøç Terminologie (10: 28,35,37,39,40; 11: 11,12,20,21, auch II HS1) in HS2 vollständig. Die Feinde werden zwar alle getötet, aber nicht im Rahmen des íøç. IV hat für MT 10 f. nur einen kurzen Passus übrig. Wohl aber wird das Josuabild kräftig aufgewertet. Heisst es in HS2 29a 16 einfach, dass Josua als erster in die Schlacht zieht, schildert IV xxi, wie Josua als Einzelkämpfer in das feindliche Lager eindringt und dort allein kämpft, bis seine Truppen auftauchen. Schließlich wird das Verhältnis zwischen Josua und Eleasar (Num. 27:21) extra beleuchtet, indem Josua während seiner Kampagne Eleasar schriftlich über die geschlagene(n) Schlacht(en) unterrichtet. Der Brief wird von einem Vogel übermittelt. Nach der vollständigen Eroberung des Landes (Ausnahme HS 1, dort wird MT 11 nachgereicht) unterziehen Josua und seine Krieger sich

40

HS2 42b 5–8; Niessen, 2000, 262.263 zu 28b 13 ﬀ.

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 165 einer siebentägigen Reinigung (IV xxi; II HS 1 P cd; HS2 29b). Danach wird Pesach gefeiert (Vgl. schon HS2 18a). Nach Landverteilung, nach dem Ausbau des Siedlungsbezirkes in der Nähe des Garizim und der Errichtung eines/r Tempels (ìëéä HS1 Q g)/Synagoge (äùðë HS2 33a) auf dem Berge wird der Terminkalender des Josua ausgebreitet. Nach II HS1 Q f verbringt Josua einen Wochentag mit Eleasar, einen Tag mit den Weisen und Ältesten, einen Tag mit den Führern des Volkes. Ein Tag ist reserviert für die Privatangelegenheiten. So bleiben noch drei Tage, um sich um die Angelegenheiten des Volkes zu kümmern. II HS2 32b 14–19 hantiert in etwa das gleiche Schema, fügt aber hinzu, daß er das Lesen der Thora nicht aufgab, weder bei Tag noch bei Nacht, außer wenn er geschäftlich belangt wurde. IV xxiv sieht Josua einen Tag mit Eleasar konferieren, einen Tag mit den Weisen/Gelehrten, einen Tag mit den Anführern, ein Tag ist für Privatangelegenheiten bestimmt und drei Tage für das Studium der Thora. Nachdem das Heiligtum auf dem Garizim errichtet ist, werden nach II HS2 33 die ostjordanischen Stämme unter Danksagung entlassen. Der Bund mit ihnen wird durch Josua und Eleasar erneuert (HS2 33b 4), inhaltlich beschrieben als das volkommene Halten der Thora des Mose. Andererseits schließen die Stämme mit ihnen einen Vertrag/Bund (úøë úéøá) bezüglich gegenseitiger militärischer Hilfe41 (HS1 nur Segen von Josua und Eleasar; MT 22:6 nur von Josua), nicht ohne daß Josua und Eleasar einen König, Nobach (Num. 32:40), für sie bestellt und installiert haben und ihm eine Thorarolle mitgegeben haben. Die Einsetzung des Nobach ist narrativ notwendig wegen seiner Rolle im folgenˇ den Konﬂikt mit Sobak (II; IV und VI; Selbständige Erzählung eingefügt nach Baba Rabba: Macdonald 1969, 204–208). Für das Josuabild sind die folgenden Züge aus dem Schriftwechsel ˇ zwischen Josua und Sobak wichtig: Josua wird in der Kriegserklärung angesprochen als „Jehoshua, Sohn des Nuns, oberster Hauptmann und Reißender Wolf“ (óøåèä áàæ) (HS2 38a 4)42: Er bekommt die Kriegserklärung, während er mit der Rechtssprechung befaßt ist, kann den Brief ohne Übersetzung lesen, läßt die Israeliten erst den Sabbat feiern (HS 38b) und entwirft persönlich eine Konzeptantwort. Der Passus, 41 Noths Amphiktyonie hätte unter den Samaritanern mehr Anhänger gefunden als bei heutigen Exegeten. 42 Gen. 49:27, vgl. Niessen, 2000, 292; Jer. 5:6, Crane, 1890, n. 58.

166

ed noort

ˇ in dem er das künftige Geschick Sobaks beschreibt und die Vorzüge seiner eigenen Armee preist, ist jetzt von Niessen auch in einem Fragment aus der Geniza von Kairo angetroﬀen worden. Eine auﬀällige Parallelie besteht nicht nur zwischen T-S NS 188 20 und dem LibJos, sondern auch mit JR(G) 1168 und 1167. Im Antwortbrief beschreibt Josua sich selbst als mit dem prophetischen Geist des Mose und mit höchster Weisheit erfüllt (HS2 39b). In drei heilsgeschichtlichen Anläufen wird die Macht JHWHs gerühmt: „Wisst ihr nicht, daß dann, wenn wir schreien: #YHWH, äîçìîá øåáâ auf unsere Feinde ein Schrecken fällt?“(41b) Nachdem Josua einige Male deutlich gemacht hat, daß er sich selbst nicht rühmen werde, schreibt er: „Der Held der Helden ist bei mir. Josua ist mein Name, mein Körper ist makellos, meine Grösse beträgt fünf Ellen43. Ich rühme mich nicht der Kleidung, derer ihr euch rühmt, mit der sich ein demütiger Fürst nicht kleidet, sondern meine Kleidung ist aus blauem und rotem Purpur und karmesinfarbigen Fäden. Die Königskrone ist auf meinem Haupt, die durch die weisen Männer angefertigt wurde, auf die der Name Gottes geschrieben ist, auf dessen Rand der Sieg erstrahlt. Ich reite auf einem weißen Pferd, das mit Purpur bekleidet ist, aus Gold gemacht. Dies ist mein Aussehen, so wie ich es euch beschrieben habe. Ich halte mich fest zu JHWH. … In JHWH liegt mein Sieg“.44 ˇ Zuerst gewinnt aber Sobak durch die Magie seiner Mutter die Oberhand. Josua und seine Männer werden von sieben eisernen Mauern eingeschlossen. Auf Josua’s Gebet hin sendet JHWH eine Taube, die es Josua ermöglicht, Nobach, den König der transjordanischen Stämme, ˇ schriftlich um Hilfe zu bitten. Der kommt eilends und tötet Sobak nach einem Duell (HS2 46b). Josua ist gerettet. Josua’s letzte Schlacht ist also nicht der Gesamtsieg wie in MT 10 und 11, sondern eine, in der er auf die Hilfe der transjordanischen Stämme angewiesen ist. Die Ansprache vor seinem Tode übernimmt die Ankündigung des nahenden Sterbens aus MT 23, ist aber inhaltlich MT 24 näher. Der zu schliessende Bund umfasst das sich vollkommene Halten an der Thora an dem heiligen, erwählten Ort, dem Garizim. Josua selbst lost seinen Nachfolger aus, den Netanael (auch HS1)/ Abil (IV), Sohn des Kalebbruders (HS2 49b). Wohl wird er Eleasar unterstellt.45 Goliath 6 1/2 Ellen (1Sam. 17:4). II HS2 42b 17–43a 4.6f.; Üb. Niessen, 2000, 176f. 45 II HS2 50a erwähnt, dass die Judäer sagen, der Nachfolger sei Othniel (Ri. 3:9) gewesen. 43 44

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 167 Josua ist in der samaritanischen Überlieferung der ideale Herrscher. Was in der Tradition des Südreiches mit David und Josia geschieht, wird hier an Josua exempliﬁziert. Er ist der erste König und übt dieses Amt in vorbildlicher Weise aus. Ohne daß von einer Unterordnung die Rede ist, geschieht alles in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Hohenpriester Eleasar. Vertritt Eleasar die kultische Kontinuität der einzigen legitimen Gemeinde Israels, so ist Josua der Garant für die Ortsbezogenheit des Heils. An diesen Ort, den erwählten íå÷î, hat er die wahre Gemeinde gebracht! Im MT reicht es nur bis Schilo. Und es brauchte 4Q522 um diese Problematik glattzustreichen! Er tradiert die richtigen Werte, dazu in besonderer Weise von JHWH mit dem Geist der Weisheit zugerüstet. Wenn er Moses’ úøùî ist, ist seine Dienerschaft Schülerschaft. Und darin ist er einzigartig: íéãåîìúä ùàø, „Oberster der Schüler“ (49a 16). Er beschützt die Gemeinschaft gegen Gefahren von außen und innen und verwirklicht die Verheißungen und Zusagen JHWHs. Wenn ihm im MT der Ehrentitel46 „Knecht JHWHs“ nur post mortem verliehen wird, so ist diese Selbstbezeichnung in der samaritanischen Überlieferung Abglanz des himmlischen Kriegers und Zeichen des kommenden Sieges in der Stunde der Bedrohung. Seine äußere Gestalt ist eindrucksvoll, er ist ein mutiger Einzelkämpfer, ein Krieger, der durch die Gegner ein reißender Wolf genannt wird. Er tradiert und studiert die Thora des Mose, Abweichungen ﬁnden während seiner Regierungszeit nicht statt. Und wenn doch (Achan), so werden sie geahndet. Hjelm47 hat zurecht auf die unterschiedlichen Großkonzepte zwischen MT und ST hingewiesen. Die Heilszeit in ST dauert bis zum Abfall des bösen Priesters Eli, der das Heiligtum nach Schilo verlegt. Auch die Richterzeit ist Heilszeit. Im MT dagegen setzt mit Ri. 2:6 ﬀ. die negativ beurteilte Zeit schon ein als Vorgriﬀ auf ein prinzipiell positiv beurteiltes Königtum in Sam. In allem vertraut Josua auf JHWH und wird von ihm und von den verbündeten transjordanischen Stämmen in höchster Not gerettet. Die letzte Schlacht, die er schlägt, ist nicht die Eroberung des Nordens (MT 11), sondern in der Endgestalt der Chroniken der mythische ˇ Kampf mit Sobak. Dabei geht er nicht als strahlender Sieger vom Platz, sondern als Geretteter. Die narrativen Erweiterungen und AusFür die Epitheta von HS2 Niessen, 2000, 51f. I. Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism. A Literary Analysis, JSOTSup 303 (Shefﬁeld, 2000), pp. 242 f. 46 47

168

ed noort

schmückungen sollen nicht wundern, sie zeigen das breitest mögliche Spektrum der Ausmalung einer biblischen Gestalt, die als entscheidende Brücke zwischen jetzt und damals gesehen wird. Die Entfernung zur biblischen Gestalt ist relativ, trotz aller legendenhaften Zügen. Es handelt sich um eine Herausarbeitung und Betonung bestimmter Züge und Motive. Josua, zu oft noch im Schatten des Mose, hat Farbe bekommen. Eigene Kontouren gewinnt das samaritanische Josua- und Gemeinschaftsbild noch durch das Fehlen der Beschneidung nach dem Jordandurchzug, durch die ﬂüchtige (Nicht-)Erwähnung des Sonnenwunders und—selbstverständlich bei der anderen Rollenverteilung— durch das Nicht-Vorhandensein eines Konﬂiktes um einen Altarbau am Jordan (MT 22:7 ﬀ.). Inwieweit kann diese samaritanische Literatur Positionen im Josuabuch MT verdeutlichen? Ich beschränke mich heute dabei auf die Rolle der transjordanischen Stämme. Dabei soll vom Josuabuch selbst ausgegangen werden. Zu oft werden in letzter Zeit große literarhistorische Schlachten ausgetragen, wobei das Josuabuch immer die Rolle des Knappen zusteht, während die echten Ritter sich um das Deuteronomium oder die Samuelis- und Königsbücher schlagen. In den samaritanischen Chroniken ist die Rolle der transjordanischen Stämme uneingeschränkt positiv. Der Bund wird erneuert, sie bekommen einen neuen König, Nobach, der Beistandspakt wird geschlossen. Als Reisegepäck bekommen sie ein Buch mit der heiligen Thora, und sie retten Josua. In der hebräischen Bibel selbst ist das Bild diﬀerenzierter. Die zweieinhalb transjordanischen Stämme, Ruben, Gad und Halb-Manasse, erscheinen in Jos. 1:12–15 in einer sekundären Schicht zum deuteronomistischen Grundgerüst des ersten Kapitels. Auch sie sollen am Eroberungsprogramm des Westjordanlandes beteiligt werden. Der sekundäre Charakter wird signalisiert durch den Standortwechsel des ïãøéä øáòá (V. 14,15), durch das Thema der Ruhe mit çåð Hif. (V. 13,15)48 und dadurch, daß V. 16–18 die passende Antwort des ganzen Volkes, nicht nur der zweieinhalb Stämme ist.49 Dieser Verpﬂichtung entspricht auf der gleichen literarischen Ebene Auch Jos. 23:1. Für den Forschungsstand: U. Schorn, Ruben und das System der zwölf Stämme Israels. Redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung des Erstgeborenen Jakobs, BZAW 248 (Berlin, 1997); J. Nentel, Trägerschaft und Intentionen des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks: Untersuchungen zu den Reﬂexionsreden: Jos 1; 23; 24; 1Sam 12 und 1Kön 8, BZAW 297 (Berlin/New York, 2000), pp. 29–37. 48 49

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 169 ihre Entlassung in Jos. 22:1–6. Ihnen wird bestätigt, daß sie sowohl dem Gebot (äåö pi.) des Mose, dem Knecht JHWHs, als dem des Josua entsprochen (22:3 øîÖ / á òîÖ) haben. Die çà-Terminologie aus 1:14 kehrt 22:3,4,(7,8), verbunden mit dem Ruhe-Motiv, wieder.50 Der Ansporn zur äåöî und äøåú-Gehorsam 22:5 korrespondiert weniger mit Jos.1:7,8 und seiner Betonung des äøåúä øôñ sondern mit der Liebe zu JHWH, in seinen Wegen zu wandeln, ihm anzuhängen und von ganzem Herzen und Seele zu dienen. Damit sind wir in 22:5 ganz in die Nähe geraten von Formulierungen wie der des Liebesgebotes aus Dtn. 6:5;11:13; 30:6 und den daraus resultierenden kultischen und ethischen Forderungen (Dtn 6:17;10:12;11:1,22; 30:16.20).51 Es mangelt dieser spät-dtr Schicht über die Rückkehr der zweieinhalb Stämme mit der gesonderten Notiz über Halbmanasse also nicht an positiven Urteilen über die Transjordanier. Sie haben alles getan was Josua ihnen in 1,12–15 aufgetragen hat, sich dabei auf Mose berufend, der in Dtn. 3:18 formuliert, was Josua wiederholt52, dabei aber selber den Rückverweis nach Num. 32*53 herstellt. Sekundär-deuteronomistisch heißt es: Ende gut, alles gut und die Zukunft ist gesichert, solange die Liebe zu JHWH in Thoraobservanz konkretisiert wird (Jos. 22:5). Dabei ist man aber ein gutes Stück vom anderen Ende der Kette, Num. 32, entfernt. Zum vor-priesterlichen Grundbestand, in dem es nur um die Rubeniter und Gaditer geht, gehört die Bitte um transjordanisches Land wegen des Viehbesitzes, der Appell des Mose an die Solidarität, wenn die anderen Stämme den Jordan überqueren, das Angebot der Beteiligung der 50 Als Bezeichnung des Stammesverhältnisses nur noch in Jos. 17:4. Vergleichbar Jos. 14:8; Ri. 1:3,17. 51 Ohne der Perlittschen Bezeichnung (L. Perlitt, „Deuteronomium 1–3 im Streit der exegetischen Methoden“, in: L. Perlitt, Deuteronomium-Studien, FAT 8 (Tübingen, 1994), p. 113, n. 27 über damals im Vergleich zu heute fast harmlose Arbeiten) der weiterwuchernden Flora der Siglen Vorschub leisten zu wollen, schließen diese Formulierungen bei Veijola’s bundestheologischer Redaktion (DtrB) an, weil hier nicht nur die einzelnen Motive vorkommen, sondern auch weil in Jos. 22:5 der Segen eine primäre Rolle spielt: T. Veijola, „Das Bekenntnis Israels. Beobachtungen zur Geschichte und Theologie von Dtn 6,4–9“, ThZ 48 (1992), pp. 369–381; T. Veijola, „Bundestheologische Redaktion im Deuteronomium“, in: T. Veijola, Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen, Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft Helsinki (Göttingen, 1996), pp. 242–276; T. Veijola, „Bundestheologie in Dtn 10,12–11,30“, in: R.G. Kratz, H. Spieckermann (ed.), Liebe und Gebot. Studien zum Deuteronomium. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Lothar Perlitt (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 206–221. 52 Die Abhängigkeit von Jos. 1:12–15 von Dtn. 3:18 wird demonstriert durch die Verwechslung des ïãøéä øáòá. 53 Vgl. Dtn. 3:19 mit Num. 32:1.

170

ed noort

Ost-Stämme, wenn sie dort bauen dürfen und die Zusage und Landzuteilung durch Mose, verbunden mit der Städteliste.54 Mit Schmidt und gegen Van Seters55 ist daran festzuhalten, daß Dtn. 3:18 aus Num. 32* schöpft und nicht umgekehrt. Es ist eine spätere Bearbeitung, in der die Bitte zum Konﬂikt ausartet und von Mose mit der Verweigerung der Kundschafter aus Num. 13 f. parallelisiert wird.56 Diese Ambivalenz der Erzählung in der Letztgestalt hat aber nichts mit einer anderen Qualität des Ostjordanlandes selbst zu tun, sondern ausschließlich mit der Bereitschaft der Ostjordanier, bei der Eroberung des Westjordanlandes mitzukämpfen. In toto bietet auch Num. 32 ein positives Bild des Ostjordanlandes, verbunden mit einem Besitzanspruch. Im gleichen literarischen Umfeld beﬁndet sich die zaghafte Extrapolierung von Dtn. 2f., die Landnahme und damit das geschenkte Land nicht am Jordan, sondern schon am Arnon beginnen zu lassen, wobei der Aufbruchsbefehl Dtn. 2:24 „Steht auf, brecht auf und überschreitet den Bach Arnon!“ dem singularischen von Jos. 1:2b: „Nun steh auf und überquere diesen Jordan!“ nachempfunden ist. Nicht ohne Spannung mit dem Moab-Ammon-Brudervolkmotiv57 werden die beiden legendarischen Bugbilder des Ostjordanlandes—Og der Rapiu vorneweg— historisiert, damit sie besiegt und ihr Land verteilt werden kann.58 Die geographischen Vorstellungen sind und bleiben unscharf, und in Dtn. 2:29 zitiert Mose sich selbst in seiner Botschaft an Sihon: „bis ich den Jordan überschreiten werde hin zu dem Land, das JHWH unser Gott, uns geben will“. Das echte, verheißene, geschenkte und in Besitz zu nehmende Land ist auch in diesen Texten das Westjordanland. Der Besitz des Ostjordanischen ist nur der Verweigerung der beiden legendarischen Könige zu verdanken, theologisch überhöht durch die Verhärtung des Herzens durch JHWH (Dtn. 2: 30).59 Legitimiert wird in 54 Das entspricht in etwa der Analyse Ludwig Schmidts 32:1,2a,4b,5*,6,16,17a,20a, 24,33*,34–38* (L. Schmidt, „Die Ansiedlung von Ruben und Gad im Ostjordanland in Numeri 32,1–38“, ZAW 114 (2002), pp. 497–510). 55 J. Van Seters, The Life of Moses, CBETh 10 (Kampen, 1994), pp. 436–450. 56 Num. 32: 7–15. 57 L. Perlitt, Deuteronomium, BKAT V/3 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1994), pp. 201–203. 58 E. Noort, „Transjordan in Joshua 13: Some Aspects“, in: A. Hadidi (ed.), Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan III (London/Amman, 1987), pp. 125–130. 59 All diese unterschiedlichen Ansätze werden überbetont, wenn sie ihrerseits historisiert, ﬁxiert und mit einer festen Periode in Israels Geschichte verbunden werden. Zu oft wurde das Anfangsdatum der Verlust der politischen Selbständigkeit als Trennungsdatum zwischen Gruppen bestimmt. So, wie bei der Gründung der beiden zackenför-

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 171 den oben besprochenen Texten lediglich, daß es Gruppen im Ostjordanland gibt, die an der Gabe des Landes teilhaben, wobei die Landvorstellungen (Arnon) ideo-geographisch ausgedehnt werden. Der Kontra-Entwurf hat einen anderen Ausgangspunkt. Nicht die einzufordernde Solidarität der Ost-Stämme mit der kämpferischen Verwirklichung der Landgabe steht zur Debatte. Land ist heilig60, abgesondert, bestimmt für, vom Heiligtum, vom Tempel, von göttlicher Präsenz her, wie es die priesterliche Ezechiel-Schule in Ez. 47:13–48:29 demonstriert. Einerseits werden in der Retribalisierung die Nord- und Oststämme integriert, andererseits ist der Jordan die unerbittliche Grenze, wobei u.a. Gad unten im Negeb landet. Das Ostjordanland ist ausgeklammert, im Westen sind die Stämme abgestuft um das Heiligtum und um die äîåøú gruppiert, wobei Juda und Benjamin den inneren Ring bilden. In diesem und verwandten Konzepten61 liegen die Bausteine für den Konﬂikt, der Jos. 22:9–34 ausgetragen wird. Er setzt die sekundär-dtr Einleitung 22:1–8* voraus. Weil ich mich dazu an anderer Stelle62 schon geäußert habe, fasse ich nur kurz zusammen. Die kultische Loyalität der eben noch (dtr) gelobten ostjordanischen Stämme wird durch den Bau eines Altars angezweifelt, wobei die Kultuszentralisation weniger das zentrale Problem ist als die mögliche kultische Unreinheit des Ostjordanlandes: „Wenn nun das Land eures Eigentums unrein ist, so zieht herüber in das Land des Eigentums JHWHs, in dem die Wohnung JHWHs sich niedergelassen hat“ (22:19). Die in der Struktur der Erzählung im Zentrum stehende Verteidigung der ostjordanischen Stämme, in der die Grenzziehung durch den Jordan ausdrücklich hervorgehoben wird, wird akzeptiert und Pinhas und die Seinen kehren zufrieden zurück. Dadurch kommt die Zentralaussage zustande: der Altar ist nur Zeuge und das Ostjordanland ist nicht unrein.63 migen Provinzen Gal #ad[a] (Gilead) und D¯u"ru zusammen mit der Magidd¯u in 733 und der Provinz Samer¯ına nach 722. Keine politische Änderung brachte—trotz Gouverneuren, Tributzahlungen und Deportationen—eine direkte, vollständige Umorientierung mit sich. Seit der Auﬂösung der Personalunion zwischen Juda und Israel gehörte das Ostjordanland schon praktisch zum Nordreich und ergab sich eine Distanz zu Juda. 60 Letztendlich erscheint auch die explizite Formulierung: Sach 2:16. 61 Die klare Grenzbeschreibung aus Num. 34 mit der Jordan als Ostgrenze ist dabei weniger auﬀällig als gelegentlich behauptet. Sie setzt Num. 32* voraus, wo das Westjordanland das eigentliche Ziel der Landgabe ist. 62 E. Noort, „Der Streit um den Altar. Josua 22 und seine Rezeptionsgeschichte“, in: Albertz, 2001, pp. 151–174. 63 Noort, 2001, p. 157.

172

ed noort

Die Komplexität der Erzählung zeigt sich am deutlichsten in der Rezeptionsgeschichte, von der ich zwei Beispiele nenne: Konform der Kombination spätpriesterlicher Erzählung (22:9–34 mit der sekundär-dtr Entlassung der ostjordanischen Stämme (22:1–6,7,8) spinnt das Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) des Pseudo-Philo64 den Faden weiter, indem ein Altar65 gebaut wird, worauf wirkliche Opfer stattﬁnden (LAB XXII 1), der demnach verwüstet wird (LAB XXII 7). Nicht die eventuelle Unreinheit des Landes ist der Grund, sondern die prämature Aktion der Ostjordanier, wobei Moses’ Vorwurf aus Num. 32:6 ﬀ. anklingt.66 Das eigentliche Anliegen ist in LAB XXII 6 zu ﬁnden. Wie schon oben angedeutet hebt Pseudo-Philo mit einem Zitat aus Jos. 8 die Thora hervor, die im Gegensatz zu einem „sacrarium manufactum“ Gottes Willen volkommen oﬀenbart. Opferdienst ist nicht unwichtig, aber Opferdienst ist Dank für die Gabe der Thora. Deuteronomisten mit unterschiedlichen Sigla würden mit Pseudo-Philo zufrieden sein. Flavius Josephus67 schlägt einen anderen Weg ein. Er setzt auf die Verwandtschaft der Stämme und betont dadurch die Einheit von West und Ost (AJ V 100). Möglicher Fremdgötterdienst dort im Ostjordanischen ist die Bedrohung. Aber „für FlJos ist der von den ostjordanischen Stämmen gebaute Altar vielmehr ein symbolon und ein tekmerion der Verwandtschaft (oikeiotes), der Notwendigkeit, anständig zu leben, und bei den Gesetzen der Väter zu bleiben, und mitnichten ein Zeichen des Abfalls (AJ V 112). … Die Einheit der Juden, exemplarisch erschwert durch das Leben in unterschiedlichen Landesteilen, wird bei FlJos durch das ‚Rewriting‘ von Jos 22 unterstrichen.“68 Christopher Begg hat hier zurecht die Adressaten, ein sowohl heidnisches als jüdisches Publikum, mit ins Auge gefasst.69 Mit der Deutung des Josephus ist eine Position erreicht worden, wobei das samaritanische Josuabuch narrativ mühelos anschließt. Literatur: Noort, 2001, p. 163, n. 59. LAB XXII 6 selbst im Plural: sacraria. 66 H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum: With Latin Text and English Translation, AGJU 31 (Leiden, 1996), p. 697. 67 Literatur: Noort, 2001, p. 166, n. 80. 68 Noort, 2001, p. 168. 69 C.T. Begg, „The Transjordanian Altar (Jos 22:10–34) According to Josephus (Ant 5.100–114) and Pseudo-Philo (LAB 22.1–8)“, AUSS 35 (1997), pp. 5–19; ders., „The Cisjordanian Altar(s) and Their Associated Rites According to Josephus“, BZ 41 (1997), pp. 192–211. 64 65

der reissende wolf—josua in überlieferung und geschichte 173 Die diversen Aspekte der josuanischen und mit ihnen verwandten Texte haben gezeigt, wie auf unterschiedliche Weise auf die Einbindung des Ostjordanlandes und dessen Gruppen an das cisjordanische Gebiet reagiert worden ist. Es ist diese Geschichte, die teils mit Ablehnung, teils mit Argwohn und teils mit unaufgebbarer Verwandtschaft annotiert worden ist, die der samaritanischen Darstellung, die Josua als einen Geretteten durch das Eingreifen der ostjordanischen Stämme porträtiert, eine besondere Stellung einräumt. Mit dieser Tagung ist IOSOT zurückgekehrt an den Ort, wo sie vor mehr als fünfzig Jahren, mit Piet de Boer als spiritus rector begann. Die Möglichkeiten des samaritanischen Josuabuches für das Josuabild zu erkunden, hat gleichfalls einen Leidener Hintergrund. Es war der brilliante Orientalist Joseph J. Scaliger (1540–1609), der 1584 von den ägyptischen Samaritanern das Manuskript erwarb, das sich jetzt in der hiesigen Universitätsbibliothek unter der Signatur Leiden Or. 249 beﬁndet und von Scaligers später Nachfolger auf dem Leidener Lehrstuhl T.W.J. Juynboll 1848 ediert und mit einer lateinischen Übersetzung und mit Annotationes versehen wurde.

“GOD” IN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

Graham Davies It is common in histories of scholarship to discern a major turningpoint in the modern study of Old Testament Theology in an article by Rudolf Kittel published in 1921 under the title “Die Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft” (“The future of Old Testament study”).1 Out of the debate provoked by Kittel’s call for a systematic and theological presentation of the religious ideas of the Old Testament came the Theology of the Old Testament of Walther Eichrodt (1933, 1935, 1939) and a succession of similar works. It is becoming clear, I believe, that Gerhard von Rad’s Weisheit in Israel (1970, ET 1972) was a similar landmark in the history of the subject. Although it was not formally a third volume of von Rad’s Old Testament Theology (and it could not be, because its subject had already received a somewhat diﬀerent treatment in the ﬁrst volume of that work), it is a contribution which, for its time, is a masterpiece which fully deserves to stand beside the two volumes of his earlier work. But its very separateness, not just in its status as a monograph in its own right but conceptually, was a signal of a new era in the study of Old Testament Theology, which had already been adumbrated, for example, in early writings of Hans Heinrich Schmid. No longer could the heart of Old Testament Theology be limited to the theology of history, the interpretation of the election traditions of Israel or the covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people. An important overview of the changing situation was given in 1982 by Henning Graf Reventlow in the ﬁnal chapter of his study of Old Testament Theology in the twentieth century.2 There he identiﬁed three themes which had recently come into much greater prominence: creation, myth and wisdom. More recently, in a book with the revealing title The Collapse of History, Leo Perdue has documented various trends in Old Testament study which have created a new context for theological interpretation, in which wisdom and creation have a prominent ZAW 39 (1921), pp. 84–99. Hauptprobleme der alttestamentlichen Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert (Darmstadt, 1982); ET Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twentieth Century (London, 1985). 1 2

176

graham davies

place.3 Again, Otto Kaiser reﬂects these developments in the subtitle of the second volume of his Old Testament Theology (1998), which describes Yahweh as not only “the God of Israel” but as “the Creator of the World and of Humanity”.4 What is common to these (and other) writers is the determination to give value to those elements of the Old Testament which were not entirely “distinctive” to Israel (the watchword of an earlier generation) but were shared, to a greater or lesser degree, with neighbouring civilisations. This is a step of major theological signiﬁcance.5 My concern in this paper runs parallel to these recent developments, but while they are in various ways literary and theological, I want to focus on a terminological and linguistic issue which must, I think, have some important implications for Old Testament Theology as well as the history of Israelite religion. It is strange that it has attracted so little interest. There are numerous studies of the origin and signiﬁcance of the name Yahweh, and theologies of the Old Testament frequently contain a chapter or more than one on the subject.6 This is surely right. But why is there hardly ever any explicit consideration of the fact that in many passages the deity who is portrayed, praised and prayed to in the Old Testament is referred to instead, or in addition, by one of the words for G/god in Hebrew? Even the relevant data are rarely assembled except in theological dictionaries, and the theological signiﬁcance of the fact that “the God of Israel and the Creator of the World and of Humanity” is often referred to without the use of the divine name at all or with words for G/god in association with the divine name is a question that has hardly been raised in the modern period at all, except in very speciﬁc contexts.

3 L.G. Perdue, The Collapse of History: Reconstructing Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis, 1994). 4 O. Kaiser, Der Gott des Alten Testaments: Wesen und Wirken, 2 (Göttingen, 1998): see further pp. 210–318. 5 Compare also B.S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (London, 1985), 30; J. Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (Oxford, 1993), ch. 5. Counter-voices have been few: among them H.-D. Preuss is perhaps the most signiﬁcant: see brieﬂy Reventlow, Hauptprobleme, pp. 183–184. 6 E.g., Kaiser, Gott, ch. 3 and 4.

“god” in old testament theology

177

1. Overview of the Biblical Hebrew words for G/god I shall treat here and in the rest of the paper only the three main words for G/god: "l, "lwh and "lhym.7 A. "l (including the plural "lym) As is well known, El is the name of the head of the Canaanite pantheon, and there are certainly a few cases in the Old Testament where Heb. "l is used in this way: most clearly Gen. 33:20, Jud. 9:46, Is. 14:13 and Ezek. 28:2. To these should be added the place-name Bethel and some others, as well as (probably) the "l-names of Genesis, at least in their original meaning. Of the rest of the 238 occurrences of "l, a little under half represent appellative uses, i.e. “(a) god” or “gods” in the plural. In the remaining cases "l occurs alone (sometimes with the definite article) and is used as an alternative designation for Yahweh, i.e. “God”. B. "lwh This is the rarest of the three words, with only 57 occurrences. There are a few appellative cases, but in the majority of its occurrences (including all 41 in the poetry of Job) it is a divine name or title, i.e. “God”. "lwh is cognate with the usual word for “god” in Aramaic and cognates also exist in Epigraphic South Arabian and Arabic, as well as in 7 Possible additions would be #lywn, qdwˇ s and sˇdy, which may sometimes function as virtual equivalents to the primary words for G/god; and derogatory terms like "lyl, which are used only for foreign gods. For earlier studies of this topic, in addition to others referred to later in this article, see, F. Baumgärtel, Elohim ausserhalb des Pentateuch, BWAT 19 (Leipzig, 1914); A. Murtonen, A Philological and Literary Treatise on the Old Testament Divine Names, Studia Orientalia 18.1 (Helsinki, 1952), pp. 23–42; U. Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch (Jerusalem, 1961), ch. 2 and 3; T.N.D. Mettinger, In search of God: the meaning and message of the everlasting names (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 65–72; M.S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the other deities in Ancient Israel (San Francisco, 1990); J.S. Burnett, A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim, SBLDS 183 (Atlanta, 2001) (I am grateful to Professor John Day for drawing this work to my attention, after the completion of my own study); and the relevant articles in TWAT/TDOT, THAT (especially the art. "lhym by W.H. Schmidt, cols 153–167), and K. van der Toorn et al. (ed.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden, 1999) (= DDD). See also G. Quell, “ες”, B, “El und Elohim im Alten Testament”, TWNT 3 (1938), 79–90 (the ET in TDNT 3, 79–89, is sometimes misleading).

178

graham davies

Ugaritic.8 In Hebrew it is natural to regard "lwh as the original singular of "lhym, though it has sometimes been suggested that it is an artiﬁcial and secondary formation, with "lhym being an “expanded” plural of "l.9 Despite its rarity and the comparative lateness of most of its occurrences "lwh cannot be regarded as a late loan from Aramaic, in view of its “o” vowel.10 C. "lhym With 2570 occurrences "lhym is easily the most common of the Biblical Hebrew words for G/god. In over 100 cases it is a genuine plural, meaning “gods”, but in the vast majority of its occurrences it is equivalent to a singular, either “(a) god” or “God”. The form can be explained as a plural of intensity or majesty and it is usually construed in these cases with a singular verb or adjective.11 More than half the occurrences of "lhym are appellative. These include the 100 or so genuine plurals mentioned already, occurrences in the construct state and with pronominal suﬃxes (some 1400 in these two categories together), as well as some further cases. Over against these uses of "lhym are the somewhat smaller number where it is a divine name or title, referring without further qualiﬁcation to Yahweh. The precise count is diﬃcult to establish, as there are some cases in which scholarly opinion has been divided between an appellative and a titular interpretation.12 Nevertheless for present purposes all that is necessary is to establish the existence of the category, and there are plenty of undisputed examples to do this, from Gen. 1:1 onwards. It should be noted that many of these occurrences have the deﬁnite article (e.g. Exod. 1:17–21; 2:23–25; 3:4–6,11–15), without it being clear that the meaning is usually any diﬀerent from those without it.13 8 D. Pardee in DDD, pp. 285–286, argues convincingly that in Ugaritic both "lh and the plural "lhm are divine names, the latter referring to a distinct group of gods who were probably descendants of El. 9 For the former view see Ges18, pp. 61–62; for the latter e.g., BDB, p. 43. 10 DDD, p. 287. 11 Cf. GK §124e–i; JM §136d–k. The similar use of the plural of "dwn is especially to be noted. Burnett, Reassessment, pp. 7–53, who provides a wealth of comparative material from Akkadian and Phoenician, prefers to explain it as a “concretized abstract plural”. 12 Baumgärtel, Elohim, passim, frequently argued for an appellative use; contra see, e.g., H. Ringgren in TWAT, 1, 300. 13 So A. Graupner, Der Elohist. Gegenwart und Wirksamkeit des transzendenten Gottes in

“god” in old testament theology

179

The use of these words for G/god is by no means uniform throughout the Old Testament, though the lack of uniformity is partly concealed, in the case of "lhym at least, if all occurrences are counted indiscriminately. The following discussion will concentrate on sections of text in which the words for G/god are particularly prominent. Some of it will treat familiar material, but its incorporation into a larger theological investigation aims to break new ground. 2. The theological implications of the use of words for G/god in direct association with the divine name The contribution of the words for G/god to Old Testament theology will, I believe, be clearer if we distinguish initially between those places where they are used in direct association with the divine name and those where they are used separately as alternatives to it. This corresponds closely to the distinction already noted between appellative and titular uses. We may begin with those sections of the Old Testament which were once at any rate viewed as the acme of its theological thought, the Deuteronomic literature and classical prophecy. There is here very little titular use of the words for G/god, but there are great numbers of occurrences of suﬃxed forms, particularly in phrases like “Yahweh your/our god” (e.g. at the beginning of the Decalogue, Deut. 5:6). Such phrases have been seen as a classic expression of Israel’s covenant faith, and it is notable that the main emphasis then usually falls on the pronominal suﬃx or the possessive adjective, “your”, by which it is translated into English. But one might well ask, what exactly did it mean to say that Yahweh was “your” or “our” god ("lhym)? Similarly in the covenant formula itself, as it appears for example in Deut. 26:17: “Today you have proclaimed Yahweh to be a god for you” ("t yhwh h"mrt hywm lhywt lk l"lhym), we need to ask: What is the role with which Yahweh is being credited by this language? What are the general characteristics of being a “god”, to which (we may presume) the speciﬁc attributes of Yahweh are added? A possible way into an answer der Geschichte, WMANT 97 (Neukirchen, 2002), p. 20 n. 5. R. Rendtorﬀ has recently claimed to ﬁnd some patterning in the variation (ZAW 106 [1994], pp. 17–21). For further discussion see S. Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles (Frankfurt, 1989, 2nd ed. 1997), pp. 29–30, n. 61, which notes a chronological factor: h"lhym predominates in late biblical Hebrew.

180

graham davies

may be provided by considering what is said about the antithetical option, “other gods” ("lhym "h. rym). It is clear from Deut. 12 that they are associated with places of worship and various kinds of furnishings and the danger for Israel is that they might themselves follow (6:14) or serve (7:4) such gods. The whole rhetoric of Deuteronomy is based on the assumption that people choose which gods they have as their own. One might well expect such a choice to be based on the belief that the god(s) would act to protect and provide for their worshippers, but it is diﬃcult to demonstrate this to be a general characteristic of deity, as distinct from a speciﬁc characteristic of Yahweh, from the text of Deuteronomy itself. In eighth-century (and indeed later) prophecy the picture is broadly the same: the predominant use of "lhym is in sufﬁxed and relational forms, and occasional references to “other gods” such as Hos. 3:1, taken together with more speciﬁc declarations such as 2:15, conﬁrm the centrality of worship in adherence to a particular god. Hosea’s diatribe in ch. 2 presupposes that gods were expected to provide the crops of the land to their worshippers, and the parallelism in Hos. 13:4 implies that the term “god” was interchangeable with “saviour” (mwˇsy#). Suﬃxed forms of "lhym (and to a lesser extent "l) are also common in the Psalter, where they express both Israel’s relationship to Yahweh as a people and the individual’s relation to a personal god. Here the terms denoting protection, refuge etc. which occur nearby, e.g. in Ps. 18:3, no doubt give a good idea of what is understood by “G/god”. Another important group of occurrences are those where "lhym or more often "l is used together with one or more adjectives to indicate attributes of Yahweh. Such expressions which include "l have recently been the subject of an article by Rolf Rendtorﬀ, who explicitly states his intention to make a contribution to Old Testament Theology.14 A large part of the article is concerned with the use of "l accompanied by adjectives such as qn", rh. wm wh. nwn and h. y to indicate attributes of Yahweh (e.g. Exod. 34:6–7; Deut. 5:9; Josh. 3:10). This clearly presupposes that Yahweh is an "l, a “god”. But he is not the only "l, the only “god”, for "l can also be applied to other deities, as the combinations with "h. r, zr and nkr (e.g. Exod. 34:14 and Ps. 81:10) and some other expressions show. Rendtorﬀ does not enter into the question, “What then counts as an "l?”, and there is perhaps rather little explicit evidence in these passages

14

“El als israelitische Gottesbezeichnung,” ZAW 106 (1994), pp. 4–21, esp. 5–6.

“god” in old testament theology

181

of what were thought to be the shared characteristics of gods. But they do show that receiving worship was one such characteristic (cf. also Ps. 73:17; 74:8) and Hos. 11:9 implies that despite all the anthropomorphic aspects of the gods a decisive diﬀerence existed between them and men, though whether this meant for Hosea an unchanging commitment to his people or a sovereign right to change his mind and relent from punishment is not fully clear. That images might be made of an "l is evident from Isa. 44:9–20. From both these kinds of passage it is clear that Yahweh is not regarded as totally unique: he can be described as belonging to a category to which other deities belong, who share certain characteristics with him. Some of these characteristics have been identiﬁed already in passing: in addition to various qualities and expectations they include the possibility of relationship to a particular people or individual, denoted by a pronominal suﬃx or a following genitive (nomen rectum). Other general characteristics of what constitutes deity could be added from a study of the ancient Near Eastern environment, whose gods are referred to in the Old Testament by the same Hebrew terms,15 and also from within the Old Testament itself: as examples we could mention the possession of supreme wisdom, implied in words of God himself as well as the serpent in Gen. 3:5,22, and the ability to protect one’s own honour by intervening in human life, as attributed to Baal in Judges 8:31 (cf. 1 Kings 18:24). It is important of course not to include in such a survey characteristics which are or might be peculiar to Yahweh, as they do not help us to deﬁne the Old Testament’s conception of deity as such. 3. The theological implications of the use of words for G/god as alternatives to the divine name All three words for G/god are also used independently, as indicated above, in most cases at least as an alternative way of referring to Yahweh. Various descriptions have been used for such cases. A widespread usage associates them with “Yahweh” under the category of “divine names”: it is common to speak, for example, of variation in “the divine names” as being one argument for multiple authorship in, say, Genesis

15

See the summary by K. van der Toorn, DDD, pp. 353–361.

182

graham davies

1–11.16 I shall, as far as possible, avoid this usage, because these words are not (proper) names in the sense that Yahweh, Marduk, Zeus etc. are. They are better referred to as “designations for (a) G/god” (Gottesbezeichnungen) or as “(divine) titles” which could be used in place of the name of a god, rather as “the Queen” can be used in the United Kingdom in place of the name “Elizabeth II”. As we seek to establish what the theological signiﬁcance of these terms is, it is to be expected that the absence of the speciﬁcity contained in a name (and in particular the name Yahweh) will be a recurring feature in the various types of context in which they appear. A further general expectation may be that the implications of these titles will share some characteristics at least with the way in which we have already seen the same words to have been used as common nouns. But beyond these common features, it is noteworthy that “the unnamed God” plays a variety of roles in diﬀerent parts of the Old Testament. The earlier historical books are a good place to begin, for the evidence is extensive and commonly overlooked. Between Judges 1 and 1 Kings 11 there are about 270 occurrences of "lhym, compared with about 500 of the divine name. Even if the clearly appellative uses of "lhym are excluded, about 140 occurrences remain, that is over a quarter of the occurrences of the divine name. This makes for a contrast in terminology between the narratives in question and Deuteronomy, which is also important evidence, along with other features of them, that they were not composed by the Deuteronomists but represent older source-material that was used by the Deuteronomistic historians. In other words they take us back to an earlier stage of Old Testament literature and religion. In Judges, which we shall use as an example for closer study, it is precisely the strongly Deuteronomistic sections, such as ch. 2 and 11, which noticeably lack these occurrences of "lhym, whereas the narrative cycles in ch. 6–9, 13–16 and 17–21 have approximately one occurrence of "lhym for every two of yhwh. There are 31 cases in Judges where "lhym is or may be a divine title, “God”. For example, in the story of Gideon and the ﬂeece (6:36–40) "lhym occurs three times and yhwh not at all. Since the surrounding narratives in most cases also employ the divine name Yahweh, there is no doubt that this is an alternative way of referring to him. What is going on here? The older view, that the variation was due to dif16

Baumgärtel, Elohim, passim, freely uses the expressions “Eigenname” and “nomen proprium” of such cases.

“god” in old testament theology

183

ferent sources, one using "lhym and one yhwh, was discarded for good reasons many years ago. In some cases "lhym is used when non-Israelites are speaking (1:7; 7:14), being addressed (3:20; 9:7) or aﬀected specifically by God’s action (9:23,56–57). The non-speciﬁc term avoids the implication that foreigners know or use the divine name and applies a similar broader concept of deity to the narrator’s references to divine action in their lives. But this does not explain the more numerous cases where Israelites are involved and where the two designations for the God of Israel alternate in the same passage. Similar alternation can be found in other ancient Near Eastern literature and it may be little more than a stylistic device.17 Yet, even if no great signiﬁcance should be attached to individual variations of this kind, the overall character of the narrative is aﬀected: the more general word "lhym is regarded as a fully acceptable substitute for the speciﬁc name of Israel’s God. This suggests a narrator (or better, school of narrators) for whom Yahweh is regarded as less distinctive from other gods known at the time than he was by, for example, the authors of Deuteronomy. But the use of "lhym also has the eﬀect of underlining the divine, superhuman dimension to Israel’s story (albeit in a general sense). Certain regular phrases which include the word "lhym, especially the combination "yˇs "lhym, may in addition point to a background for the narrators’ language in a more ﬂuid environment in which the same term was used whichever particular god was involved. Surprisingly, the combination "yˇs yhwh never occurs, whereas "yˇs "lhym occurs 65 times in seven diﬀerent biblical books. It may well have a pre-Israelite background.18 In any case we have here a further clue to what may have been conveyed by the choice of "lhym by a narrator: it expressed superhuman power or ability without the speciﬁc connotations of the divine name. Even though in the biblical narrative Yahweh is (presumably) understood to be meant, its wider religious context can still be detected. 17 E.g. in the Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers” and the story of Wenamun (W.W. Hallo and K.L. Younger (eds), The Context of Scripture, 1 [Leiden, 1997], pp. 88–89, 90– 91), and in the stela of Ii-kher-nofret (ANET, 329–330). 18 Baumgärtel, Elohim, pp. 54–62, 81–82. The phrase ml"k "lhym is more complex, but interesting in its own way. The occurrences in Judg. 13:6b and 13:9b are untypical, as the normal phrase is ml"k yhwh, both in Judg. 13 and elsewhere. But as Baumgärtel observed, in comparisons (such as 13:6b) ml"k "lhym is always used, and one can understand why this might be: the less speciﬁc expression was entirely suﬃcient to indicate the exceptional characteristics of a human (or apparently human) ﬁgure. Burnett,

184

graham davies

In the narratives of the Pentateuch (more precisely, the Tetrateuch) there are more signs of a conscious theological motivation in the distribution of the diﬀerent designations for God. I shall take for granted the composite nature of the Pentateuch and also the identiﬁcation of the Priestly source or redactional layer within the Pentateuch. I do not accept the view that investigations of the kind that I am engaged in have undermined Pentateuchal criticism as such (contrary to the view of, e.g. U. Cassuto), because the variations in the “divine names” are only one factor alongside others that point to composite authorship. The facts are of course well known. In the case of the Priestly narrative "lhym is used freely and to the virtual exclusion of the divine name from the beginning of Genesis to Exod. 6:2. From then on the positions are reversed: "lhym is not used (except very occasionally in combinations) and the divine name takes over. In other words the narrator ﬁnds "lhym appropriate for the universal beginnings of his story (Gen. 1–11), for the section on the patriarchs and up to the beginning of the Exodus story. That "lhym for him designates the same god as yhwh is made explicit in the bridge-passage Exod. 6:2–8. So why the variation in usage? Presumably "lhym is suited to the incomplete, less speciﬁc knowledge of God which is assumed to have existed before the Exodus. It is also probable, in the general context of the Priestly creation story, that at least an implicit claim is being made here that this "lhym is the only "lhym that there is. The period of the patriarchs is apparently given an intermediate place by the use of the title "l sˇdy sporadically in dialogue, which is underlined in Exod. 6:3. In the probably older non-Priestly texts the situation is more complex, but an important observation of a similar kind can be made. Here too there is a change in the use of "lhym. Through most of Genesis it is found alternating with the divine name, though in fact only very rarely in the primeval history (Gen. 2–11).19 The alternation continues into Exodus, but not just until the revelation of the divine name in ch. 3, as there are occurrences in 13:17–19, numerous verses in ch. 18 and several in the main Sinai-narrative (19:3,17,19; 20:1,19–21; 24:11,13).

Reassessment, pp. 7–24, gives convincing evidence from the Amarna letters and elsewhere of a Canaanite origin for the general use of "lhym as a singular noun. 19 Only alone in Gen. 3:1–5; 4:25 and 6:1–4. The two occurrences in 6:1–4 are both in the combination bny h"lhym, which is likely to be a special case, however it should be translated. The four in 3:1–5 are also exceptional and might be due to the fact that an animal is speaking.

“god” in old testament theology

185

After that its use virtually ceases, except for the Balaam-story in Num. 22–24 (9 occurrences, alongside yhwh, "l and other names/titles).20 Here the change in usage correlates with and is probably due to the making of the covenant with Yahweh at Mount Sinai. After this only the speciﬁc divine name is thought to be appropriate. In distinction from P the change thus follows the experiences and commitment of the people as a whole, rather than the special revelation to Moses, a diﬀerence which is no doubt related to the overall theology of the two strands of material. But the impression is still given that "lhym is an appropriate title for God only in the earliest period, chieﬂy the period of the patriarchs. Of course, in the non-Priestly text that has come down to us the change is not as abrupt as it is in P, because the divine name is used all the way through Genesis and the beginning of Exodus, as well as later, so that the two expressions occur side by side to begin with. Recently attention has been directed again to the occurrences of "lhym in the non-Priestly sections of the Tetrateuch by Axel Graupner, in the context of his thorough and laudable attempt to reinstate the Elohist source as a major constituent part of the Pentateuch. He has noted how the use of "lhym in the “E” material is associated with a more transcendent and universalising view of God, with an emphasis on ethics and God’s mediated activity through human agents, which is reminiscent of aspects of the wisdom literature.21 But whether the alternation of "lhym and yhwh is due to the use of a continuous source with a preference for "lhym up to the Sinai episode (the hypothesis of an Elohist source) or of shorter works with the same preference (e.g. Abraham-, Jacob- and Moses-cycles), or is due to the varying usage of a single narrator, need not concern us here: since the eﬀect is much the same: the exclusive dominance of the divine name begins only at Sinai. The Balaam-story, which mixes the designations for God again, is perhaps a special case, in view of the fact that the main character is clearly a non-Israelite, in fact the whole story is played out among non-Israelites. The unexpected discovery of a text or texts about Balaam at Tell Deir #Alla may also have a contribution to make on this point, since it includes occurrences of both "lhn (though once certainly as a real plural, 1:1) and "l,

Otherwise only in Exod. 32:16 (in combinations) and Num. 21:5. Elohist: see especially the summary on pp. 383–400. Cf. Burnett, Reassessment, pp. 121–151, who also emphasises God’s “eﬃcacious presence as the patron deity of Israel’s ancestors” here (p. 139). 20 21

186

graham davies

as well as a plural form of sˇdy.22 This text may lend some support to Friedrich Baumgärtel’s hypothesis about Canaanite inﬂuence on the designations for God in the Old Testament. But maybe the Balaam-story is not such a special case after all. The older Genesis narratives about the patriarchs, in addition to plenty of occurrences of "lhym, also include several cases of one of the other words for the deity, "l. It is generally agreed that these "l-names represent an ancient element of the patriarchal tradition, even if they are not its most ancient element. It is surely not a coincidence that these "lnames are found in precisely the same section of text, Gen. 12–50, in which "lhym is often used by the narrator. It seems that the narrator uses "lhym to represent what was in the traditions which he inherited often represented by "l. Several times this equivalence can be seen in one and the same passage (35:1–7; 46:1–4). The use of "lhym in the narratives of Genesis probably reﬂects the fact that these narratives go back to stories which were once told by worshippers of El and represented the divine guidance of the patriarchal family as the work of El. In the present form of the narratives the title "lhym is strongly associated with and deﬁned by the life and religion of people who have not (yet) entered into covenant with Yahweh, for whom religious life is still centred on the family. The theological connotations of "lhym in these narratives are primarily those of family religion. This could also be relevant to the appearance of "lhym in the Gideon and Samson narratives in Judges. Thus, theologically, "lhym in Genesis and Exodus recalls the fact that there was more to belief in the God of Israel than what we may call “Exodus faith” and that this “more” included elements with an origin prior to the Exodus.23 But these did not remain its only connotations, for there is evidence in Exodus that "lhym was also used alongside the divine name for the deity who was encountered and seen and heard by the ancestors of the nation at Mount Sinai. In addition the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 20–23 contains 8 occurrences of "lhym (alongside 6 of yhwh). Five of these are in the main casuistic section of laws, and four of them occur in a reference to speciﬁc legal procedures dealing with slavery and the deposit of property. See J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, Aramaic Texts from Deir #Alla (Leiden, 1976); id. (ed.), The Balaam Text from Deir #Alla Re-Evaluated. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden, 21–24 August 1989 (Leiden, 1991). 23 Cf. R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament (Minneapolis, 1992). 22

“god” in old testament theology

187

No doubt this was one reason why, in traditional interpretation, "lhym was thought sometimes to mean “the judges”. But this view is generally rejected today as being unnecessary and unfounded and the translation “God” or “the gods” is adopted.24 There is disagreement over whether “household gods” or the god(s) worshipped at (presumably) the local shrine are meant. A case can be made for the former view in 21:6 and the latter in 22:7–8. The use of "lhym here has a series of interesting parallels in the Laws of Hammurabi and might well point to an originally diﬀerent or wider reference prior to the present Yahwistic context of the laws.25 Whether that be so or not, what do these passages imply for the connotations of "lhym? Apparently that "lhym is (or are) closely involved with family life and oversight of changes of status and disputes in that context, presumably on the basis of a commitment to justice and order. A more generally providential oversight of individual life is presupposed in the use of "lhym in Exod. 21:13. So far we have been mainly concerned with occurrences of "lhym. But there are occurrences of "l, albeit fewer in number, which are just as relevant to our theme. It is noteworthy that, whereas "lhym alone is most frequent in prose (and especially narrative) texts, "l is more common in poetry, especially the Psalms (77 times) and Job (55 times). Given the widespread use of related words in Ugaritic, Phoenician and Akkadian, the possibility of inﬂuence on its meaning and associations from the wider Levantine culture must be taken even more seriously than with "lhym. But actual Hebrew usage must remain the decisive criterion. In addition to passages like those considered earlier there are a number where "l must be regarded as a divine title or even a divine name. This is clearly the case in the book of Job, to which we shall come later. But it is also to be recognised in some other passages which construct a theology of creation, divine assembly and paradisal luxury which has a lot in common with the role of El expressed in the Ugaritic texts (Ps. 19:1; 82:1; Isa. 14:13; Ezek. 28:2).26 This may well lie behind the use of (h)"l as a divine title elsewhere in the Psalms (e.g. Ps. 50:1). It is natural to see this usage as the background to the very distinctive use of "l as part of Deutero-Isaiah’s monotheistic teaching, to which 24 For a recent discussion of various interpretations of the passages see C. Houtman, Exodus ET, vol. 3 (Leuven, 2000), pp. 116–121, 197–201. 25 E.g. Codex Hammurabi, §§ 9, 20, 23, 103, 106, 126, 131, 181, 249, 266, 281. See also Middle Assyrian Laws, C+G, § 1 (ANET, 186). 26 Cf. Rendtorﬀ, ZAW 106 (1994), p. 7 n. 15.

188

graham davies

Rendtorﬀ drew special attention.27 We may begin as he does with Isa. 43:10–13: You are my witnesses, oracle of Yahweh, and my servant whom I chose, To know and believe in me and to understand that I am He (hw"). Before me no god ("l) was formed, and none shall exist after me. I, I am Yahweh, and there is no Saviour besides me. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange one among you, And you are my witnesses, oracle of Yahweh: I am God ("l), from this very day I am He (hw"). There is none who can rescue from my hand. I shall act and who will reverse it?

In its ﬁrst occurrence "l is used as an appellative, as part of an argument that there are no gods besides Yahweh. But at the end its use in the statement “I am God ("l)” must carry a much stronger force. Even if it were still viewed as an appellative, the statement of Yahweh’s divinity when there are no other gods confers on him a unique status in the universe, so that we are justiﬁed here in writing “God” with a capital letter. In these verses we can see "l becoming an expression of monotheism. The same is the case in 45:21–22 and in 46:8–11, which follows on the mocking critique of the chief Babylonian gods in verses 1–7. In 46:9 "lhym, which is generally used as an appellative by DeuteroIsaiah (cf. 41:23 etc.), is given the same meaning. In line with this it is used with the deﬁnite article in 45:18 to express Yahweh’s unique deity, just as h"l is used in 42:5. In the later books and editorial work of the Old Testament, to which we must now turn, we ﬁnd phenomena which are very likely the eﬀects of the ideas and usage developed by DeuteroIsaiah. A striking case is the so-called “Elohistic Psalter”.28 In Psalms 42– 83 the incidence of "lhym is much more frequent than elsewhere in the Psalter. The following ﬁgures are for the form "lhym when it is used as a singular noun, i.e. they do not include forms in the construct state or with pronominal suﬃxes or the few cases where it has a plural meaning, “gods”. In the remainder of the Psalter there are about 30 such occurrences of "lhym, whereas in Ps. 42–83 there are about 200 cases. On the other hand in the rest of the Psalter there are 650 cases ZAW 106 (1994), pp. 12–13. See (e.g.) A.F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms, CBSC (Cambridge, 1902), liii– lix; H. Gunkel-J. Begrich, Einleitung in die Psalmen (Göttingen, 1933), pp. 447–449, 451; S. Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Oxford, 1967), 2, pp. 194–195. 27 28

“god” in old testament theology

189

of the divine name, but only 45 in Ps. 42–83.29 The extraordinary prominence of "lhym appears to be due to a deliberate policy on the part of the compilers of this section of the Psalter, which must at one time have existed separately. Some of these psalms clearly presuppose the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians (51, 74, 79), so the collection as a whole cannot be any earlier than the exilic period: some psalms included in it (e.g. 49, 73) are probably later still. Thus the compilation and the redactional modiﬁcation of this collection by the substitution of "lhym for the divine name must have occurred sometime in the sixth century or later. Why was such a redactional modiﬁcation undertaken and what does it contribute to a theology of the Old Testament? In the changed circumstances of the later period various explanations seem possible. One possibility is reverence for the divine name, as is clearly attested later, which led to a reluctance to pronounce it, even in worship. Or it may be because of the non-speciﬁc connotations of "lhym, which avoids the idea of a deity who is known by a particular name and related only to a speciﬁc people.30 By this time also, in the light of what we ﬁnd in Deutero-Isaiah, emphasis may be being placed on the fact that this God is the only god who exists.31 Whatever its rationale, this preference for "lhym was clearly not the last word of the compilers of the Psalter. The same practice is not followed (apart from exceptional cases) in the remainder of the Psalter, including what are now known as Books 4 and 5 (Pss. 90–150), which are generally regarded as containing the latest additions to the Psalter. The later editors and scribes of the Old Testament generally did not adopt a comprehensive “Elohising” of the text, but were content to use the divine name extensively. Theologically this seems to point to a reassertion of the primacy of a more traditional, “national” theology over against tendencies to “universalise” Yahweh. The post-exilic books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah also display numerous occurrences of "lhym: 70 in 1 Chronicles, 83 in 2Chronicles and 40 in Ezra-Nehemiah (not including those with suﬃx or in conCompare especially Pss. 14 and 53. So R.L. Ottley, Aspects of the Old Testament (London, 1897), p. 191. 31 The background and purpose of this collection of psalms merits closer examination. Particular signiﬁcance might be found in the latest psalms included in it (49, 73?). It is possible that there was inﬂuence on it from the popular title of the Persian period, "lhy hˇsmym, (and its Aramaic equivalent), as is suggested more generally in D.V. Edelman (ed.), The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms (Kampen, 1995), pp. 22–23, 114–122. 29 30

190

graham davies

struct state). The overall ﬁgures for the books of Chronicles are well in excess of the total of those for the books of Kings and the parallel sections of 2Samuel (c. 153 vs. 110): compare, e.g., the replacement of yhwh in 1 Kgs 12:15 by "lhym in 2Chr. 10:15.32 But, interesting and relevant for our investigation as such phenomena are, their signiﬁcance should not be exaggerated. There are some 550 occurrences of the divine name in Chronicles which have not been amended, indeed many of them occur in the Chronicler’s own new material. However, both Sara Japhet and Friedrich Baumgärtel before her have drawn attention to the number of cases where "lhym in Chronicles occurs as the nomen rectum in a construct phrase.33 These are the more signiﬁcant since it is this usage which predominates even more strongly in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, especially (18x) in the formula byt "lhym. This contrasts with 9 occurrences of byt yhwh in these books, of which 6 are in Ezra 1–3, so only 3 in the “ﬁfth-century” material. It would seem that there was an increased tendency at this time to avoid the divine name especially when it was closely associated with an earthly building or object, at least in the circles responsible for these two books (which we might justiﬁably assume to be of an “oﬃcial” nature). Perhaps the “Elohistic Psalter” was produced by the same circles. In Chronicles this tendency, while occasionally visible, is much less prevalent: one might perhaps compare it with the reversion to general use of the divine name in books 4 and 5 of the Psalter, from which of course the Chronicler took his main extracts of psalms. Jonah and the two later wisdom books of Job and Ecclesiastes provide much stronger evidence. In Ecclesiastes "lhym occurs 40 times, usually with the deﬁnite article, the divine name not at all ("l and "lwh also not at all). In Job the picture is at ﬁrst sight more complex, as there are 32 occurrences of the divine name, 55 of "l, 41 of "lwh, and 17 of "lhym (and 31 of sˇdy, though this title is being left out of account here). But of the occurrences of the divine name only one is in the poetry (12:9); the rest are in the prose framework of the book (26x) or in the headings to the speeches in Job 38:1–42:6 (5x). The poetic sections of Job thus almost entirely avoid the use of the divine name. Even "lhym is only found here 6 times, the other eleven occurrences being in the prose framework. In Jonah there are 16 occurrences of "lhym, alongside 26 of the divine name, suﬃcient to be signiﬁcant. 32 33

Japhet, Ideology, p. 31 n. 64, lists 32 passages where this has taken place. Baumgärtel, Elohim, pp. 68–74; Japhet, Ideology, pp. 27–28.

“god” in old testament theology

191

In all three of these books the coincidence of the use of words for G/god instead of or alongside the divine name with features which have been prominent in recent study of Old Testament theology is especially clear. For here the words for G/god are used in the expression of a theology which is individual, universal and creation-based, with scarcely any reference to the national traditions of Israel. Jonah is called to preach to foreigners, Job is portrayed as a foreigner, and Ecclesiastes as an “everyman” who lives by what he “sees”, not by the speciﬁc faith-traditions of his people. Moreover, both in Job and in Ecclesiastes God is presented as being elusive and even hostile, whether to Job in particular or to mankind in general. In Job some qualiﬁcation is needed because of the recurrent use of the divine name in the prose prologue and epilogue as well as in the introductions to the poetic divine speeches. One might at ﬁrst be tempted to say that in the divine speeches the theology is not essentially diﬀerent from that of the preceding dialogue, with its focus on God as all-sovereign Creator and Judge. But there is one major diﬀerence and it is very likely intended to be quite decisive. This is the fact that Yahweh (sic) speaks, whereas the God of the dialogue remains silent. This is also an innovation in the general “wisdom” outlook on theology, where knowledge of God is generally acquired by observation and thought and not by hearing the voice of God through a prophet or a lawgiver or in any other way.34 The case of the prose framework is rather diﬀerent. This is, in my opinion, in origin a separate work, so that the question of its relation to the dialogue arises at the level of the canonical text rather than the original author (in fact authors). The eﬀect of the combination of the framework with the dialogue is then to imply from the beginning that Yahweh the God of Israel is indeed the God of the individual and of creation, in line with the teaching of the Old Testament elsewhere, so that all the divine titles in the dialogue are now read with reference to him. Even so, it is interesting that no attempt was made (except for the isolated occurrence in 12:9) to overlay the divine name in the text of the dialogue: the “non-naming” of God was allowed to stand here, as it was in Ecclesiastes.35

There may be other diﬀerences: see, e.g., Mettinger, In Search of God, pp. 185–198, and the article by Professor van Wolde in this volume. 35 In Daniel the divine name occurs only in ch. 9: elsewhere a variety of titles is used instead, including "lhym/"lh" in 1:2,9,17; 5:3,23,26. 34

192

graham davies 4. Conclusion

It is time to summarise the results of this study. The words for G/god are used in most books of the Old Testament, even in some places which the divine name did not reach or from which it was deliberately excluded. When used in connection with the divine name (and sometimes apart from it) suﬃxed forms of the words for G/god provided the most succinct expression of Yahweh’s relationship to his people or to particular individuals; and absolute forms helped to express aspects of his nature (“a … god”) as well as, elsewhere, the claim that he is the only true God or the only one worthy of the name (especially in the combination yhwh hw" h"lhym). In both cases it is recognised that Yahweh is not the only being to which these words were being applied. As alternatives to the divine name the words for G/god avoided the speciﬁcity produced by naming the deity. This may be done in a strong sense or in a weak sense. Speciﬁcity may be unnecessary, because the context has already made quite clear that Yahweh is meant, and the words for G/god by their very nature merely underline the fact that it is a god who is involved, whereas names are borne by humans as well as by gods.36 But sometimes non-speciﬁcity in a strong sense is conveyed, to imply that the deity is not limited in his concerns to one people or location. This may be because he has not yet entered upon such limited concerns, and is not yet even named (so in the Priestly and “Elohistic” sections of the Pentateuch), or it may be because he is seen as having universal concerns at all times (Deutero-Isaiah, Jonah, Job (poetry), Ecclesiastes, [Daniel]). These observations embrace some of the points made by scholars such as Cassuto, but they leave more scope to the particular choices of individual authors and this helps to explain why the same characteristics of the deity are sometimes associated with the divine name and sometimes with the words for G/god (e.g. the varying usage in Genesis 1–11). Historically speaking, the use of the words for G/god in the Old Testament also has a wide range. Some of it reaches back into and derives from Israel’s pre-Yahwistic past, whether linguistic or religious. This usage can be seen even in contexts which are themselves ﬁrmly Yahwistic. Then, the words for G/god are used in various ways to express the essence of Yahwism and in this sense they have a fully 36

The same contrast is expressed more explicitly in passages where words for G/god and man occur in antithetical juxtaposition, such as Num. 23:19 and Hos. 11:9.

“god” in old testament theology

193

Yahwistic phase of use, which probably comprises the great majority of the occurrences. In some later texts, but not all, a strongly universal theology is expressed by the words for G/god, and in a sense this may be described as “post-Yahwistic”: it could be said to have provided the basis for the prevalence of words for G/god in later theological and philosophical discussion and writing, even where the biblical tradition was being expounded. But, as the retention of the divine name in at least the consonantal text of most of the Old Testament shows, such expressions in no way displaced distinctive terminology from the Old Testament canon: the latter remained the majority voice. How, in the light of all this, is the term G/god to be deﬁned in Old Testament usage? On the one hand, a god is a superhuman being, not normally visible, whose help and protection humans may seek to secure and to whom they may oﬀer worship. That such beings exist is part of the Old Testament world-view and they each have their distinctive and developing characteristics. On the other hand there are places where the words for G/god are used, with or without the deﬁnite article, in a much stronger sense, at ﬁrst as a simple alternative to the divine name but eventually to denote the one deity who exists, and then there is implied in the term, if not the totality, then a large majority of the characteristics which were previously attributed to a number of gods, such as creation, sovereignty in history and in individual life, power over nature. Given the history and character of the Old Testament tradition and the circumstances in which the canon was ﬁxed, it is fully understandable that it is the characteristics of Yahweh which were decisive in the formation of this concept of deity.37 It was this which formed the biblical basis for the extensive later use of words for G/god in Ben Sira, at Qumran and in early Christian literature, for example. This paper is only a limited exploration of its theme. The time available today and the extent of my research on it to date in no way permit a conclusive and exhaustive answer to the questions posed at the beginning. I still have many questions about the topic in my own 37 Cf. Schmidt, THAT, col. 167: “Overall then the generic noun "lhym helped the Old Testament to understand and to proclaim its own God of history as the God of the world.” The expression yhwh hw" h"lhym (and equivalents) merits special study in this connection. In its equation of Yahweh with the unnamed “God” it often expresses a monotheistic belief, but even where it does not it binds together the beliefs studied in this paper with belief in Yahweh as the God of Israel in particular. As such it is perhaps a worthy candidate to express “the centre of Old Testament theology”. But that is a subject for a separate paper!

194

graham davies

mind. Questions of method, which have rightly been of central concern for recent study of Old Testament theology, have been largely left on one side here. My reason for this is that the issues and the evidence reviewed here need, I would argue, to be taken into account whatever approach to Old Testament theology is adopted. The neglect of them to which I referred earlier is not limited to any particular approach used hitherto. My hope is that suﬃcient has been said to encourage further study of an important and neglected aspect of our subject and to show that it is a topic which coheres especially closely with some of the most recent developments in Old Testament theology.

SCRIBES INSPIRÉS ET ÉCRITS CÉLESTES

Jean-Marie Husser La littérature apocalyptique mentionne assez souvent l’existence d’écrits rédigés et conservés au ciel, dont les visionnaires auraient eu connaissance directement ou indirectement. Dans le contexte général d’interprétation inspirée des prophéties, ou de réécriture des Écritures dans lequel se développe cette littérature, la référence à des écrits célestes peut obéir à une stratégie de légitimation des nouveautés doctrinales ou légales introduites en marge des livres en voie de « canonisation ». Elle a aussi pour eﬀet d’associer les anges au processus de révélation, en plaçant dans des écrits qui leur sont conﬁés, c’est-à-dire en dehors de Dieu, la source de la connaissance à laquelle les humains peuvent avoir accès. Depuis l’article de Robert Eppel1, ce motif des écrits célestes a fait l’objet de plusieurs publications, dont les plus anciennes visaient principalement à en établir l’origine et la pérennité dans le contexte général du Proche-Orient ancien, jusqu’à ses utilisations dans le christianisme primitif et le judaïsme rabbinique2. Des travaux plus récents se sont eﬀorcés de préciser les contenus de ces écrits célestes et ont mis l’accent sur leur fonction rhétorique, notamment à propos des tables célestes dans le livre des Jubilés3.

R. Eppel, «Les tables de la Loi et les tables célestes », RHPR 17 (1937), pp. 401–412. G. Widengren, The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book, Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 7 (Leipzig, 1950) ; H. Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum, WUNT 2 (Tübingen, 1951), chap. XI, «Die himmlischen Bücher und Tafeln », pp. 231–254 ; L. Koep, Das himmlische Buch in Antike und Christentum. Eine religionsgeschitliche Untersuchung zur altchristliche Bildersprache, Theophaneia 8 (Bonn, 1952) ; S.M. Paul, «Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Life », JANES 5 (1973) pp. 345–353. 3 A. Caquot, « Jubilés », in : A. Dupont-Sommer et M. Philonenko (eds), La Bible. Ecrits intertestamentaires Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris, 1987), n. 10, pp. 648 ss. ; A. Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination. Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran, STDJ 18 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 69–79; F. García Martínez, «The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees », in : M. Albani, J. Frey, A. Lange (eds), Studies in the Book of Jubilees, TSAJ 65 (Tübingen, 1997), pp. 243–260; H. Najman, « Interpretation as Primordial Writing : Jubilees and its Authority Confering Strategies », JSJ 30 (1999), pp. 397–410. 1 2

196

jean-marie husser

Tel qu’il s’élabore dans la littérature juive du Second Temple, ce motif s’inspire de diﬀérentes représentations et de deux sources distinctes. Il y a tout d’abord la tradition mésopotamienne, remontant à Sumer au moins, relative aux «tablettes des destins » (.tupp- sˇ¯ım¯ati) rédigées par Nabu, le scribe divin. Je ne m’attarderai pas sur cette représentation mythologique bien connue4. Il y a d’autre part, dérivée de celle-ci, la tradition biblique d’une rédaction des tables de la Loi par Dieu lui-même avant de les remettre à Moïse5. La prégnance de cette représentation symbolique est très forte et elle ne demandait qu’à être exploitée. On en trouve une bonne illustration dans la manière dont a évolué le récit de la révélation du plan du sanctuaire, entre le plan «montré » à Moïse et celui «enseigné » à David. Dans le premier cas, le texte sacerdotal d’Ex. 25 parle du « modèle » (tabnît) que Dieu va « montrer » ("˘anî mar"eh) à Moïse, sans préciser de quelle façon s’opère cette révélation (v. 9). La péricope s’achève par cet ordre (v. 40) : « Vois donc, et fais selon leur modèle qui t’a été montré sur la montagne » (betabnît¯am "˘asˇer "att¯ah m¯ar"eh b¯ah¯ar). Quand le Chroniste reprend le thème quelque deux siècles après (1 Ch. 28:11–12), il y ajoute précisément le motif de l’écrit réalisé par Dieu lui-même. David achève ses recommandations à son ﬁls par ces paroles (v. 19) : « Tout cela se trouve dans un écrit de la main de Yahvé (hakkol bik et¯ab miyyad yhwh) qui m’a instruit (hi´skîl) de tous les ouvrages du modèle ». Le modèle n’est plus simplement montré, il est enseigné (hi´skîl) à partir d’un document écrit (k et¯ab) ; on entend, derrière ces deux termes, l’importance acquise de l’écrit dans le judaïsme du Second Temple, ainsi que le développement du commentaire oral qui l’accompagne. La mise en récit de l’acte d’écriture et de la rédaction de livres témoigne de l’émergence, dès l’époque de Josias déjà, d’une véritable religion du livre en Israël6. Mais elle obéit surtout à des stratégies de légitimation de l’écrit lui-même7, et elle révèle aussi quelque chose du rapport que les auteurs entendent établir entre leur œuvre et leurs lecteurs

4 Pour un survol rapide des données mésopotamiennes, voir S.M. Paul, art.cit. (note 2), p. 345 s. 5 Ex. 24:12 ; 31:18; 32:16; 34:1; Deut. 4:13 ; 5:22. Cf. l’aﬃrmation contraire selon laquelle c’est Moïse qui rédigea les tables : Ex. 24:7–8; 34:28. 6 B. Seidel, «Ezechiel und die zu vermutenden Anfänge der Schriftreligion im Umkreis der unmittelbaren Vorexilszeit. Oder : Die Bitternis der Schriftrolle », ZAW 109 (1995), pp. 51–64. 7 E.W. Conrad, « Heard but not Seen : The Representation of « Books » in the Old Testament», JSOT 54 (1992), pp. 45–59.

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

197

potentiels8. C’est sur ce dernier point que je voudrais attirer l’attention à propos des écrits célestes dans la littérature apocalyptique. Je reprends tout d’abord la question de la typologie de ces écrits célestes qui reste confuse, en dépit de quelques mises au point. Leo Koep9 utilise trois catégories, toujours utilisables comme point de départ : Schicksalbuch, Buch der Werke, Buch des Lebens, mais qui ne tiennent pas assez compte des développements propres aux écrits non canoniques, et leur utilisation varie passablement selon les auteurs. La taxinomie proposée par Florentino García Martínez a le mérite de mettre de l’ordre dans les multiples usages des «tables célestes » dans les Jubilés10, mais n’est guère exportable en dehors de ce livre. Dans une seconde partie, nous verrons que la mise en récit des révélations apocalyptiques peut se lire comme la transposition imaginaire du fonctionnement interne des groupes religieux producteurs de ces écrits. Dans cette hypothèse, la référence aux écrits célestes et à la médiation des anges construit une représentation idéalisée de la relation que les apocalypticiens cherchent à établir entre eux-mêmes, leurs écrits et leurs lecteurs potentiels. Mon enquête porte essentiellement sur les visions apocalyptiques de Daniel, les parties anciennes de 1 Hénoch (le Livre Astronomique, le Livre des Songes et l’Epître) et le livre des Jubilés. Cet ensemble d’écrits constitue un échantillonnage représentatif de la phase initiale de l’apocalyptique, alors que se mettent en place l’essentiel de ses représentations. On peut ainsi, en amont, suivre la cristallisation du motif à partir de ses sources scripturaires et culturelles, et faire un rapide examen de son évolution dans les écrits de Qumrân. Le livre de Daniel contient, dans sa partie apocalyptique, trois mentions d’écrits célestes. Chacune correspond à l’une des trois catégories déjà mentionnées, que je désignerai comme : le type « registre des oeuvres », le type «liste des élus », le type «table des destins ». La première mention se trouve dans la vision du chapitre 7 où la scène du tribunal est résumée par ces simples mots : « Le tribunal siégea et des livres furent ouverts » (dîn¯a" yetib wesiprîn petîh. û) (v. 10). Les livres en question apparaissent à l’évidence comme des registres des actions humaines, bonnes Voir à ce sujet J.-P. Sonnet, The Book within the Book. Writing in Deuteronomy, BIS 14 (Leiden, 1997). 9 Op.cit. (note 2), p. 18. 10 Art.cit. (note 3). 8

198

jean-marie husser

ou mauvaises. Le pluriel sous-entend qu’il y aurait un livre pour chacun des accusés au tribunal. Nous avons donc aﬀaire ici au type « registre des œuvres », qui tient le compte des actions individuelles en vue du jugement dernier; cette perspective eschatologique est à souligner, elle est essentielle à ce type d’écrit céleste. Ce motif du registre des œuvres est également connu en Mésopotamie et apparaît plusieurs fois dans l’Ancien Testament11. La deuxième mention d’un écrit céleste intervient en introduction de la grande vision ﬁnale (Dan. 10–12). L’ange commence son récit par ces termes (10:21) : « Je t’annoncerai ce qui est écrit dans le document de vérité » ("aggîd l ek¯a "et h¯ar¯asˇûm bik et¯ab "emet). Un peu plus loin il reprend son discours (11:2) : « Maintenant donc, je vais t’annoncer la vérité (we #att¯ah "emet "aggîd l ek¯a):… », et il poursuit avec le récit de la succession des empires et des événements eschatologiques. Cette prophétie angélique se présente donc comme la révélation d’un document écrit dans les cieux12. Celui-ci contient, écrit à l’avance, le déroulement complet de l’histoire universelle et correspond au type «table des destins » ; l’auteur de Daniel est ici directement tributaire de la représentation sumérienne des tablettes des destins transposée de l’individu à l’ensemble de l’humanité. La perspective est celle d’une prédestination absolue, mais n’implique pas nécessairement une conception eschatologique de l’histoire. Dans les livres canoniques, la référence à ce type d’écrit céleste est excessivement rare. Je pense cependant que c’est à une telle table des destins que réfère le passage de Ex. 32:32–33, où Moïse demande à être eﬀacé du livre que Yahvé a écrit13, à quoi celui-ci réplique : « C’est celui qui a péché contre moi que j’eﬀacerai de mon livre ("emh. enû missiperî). » Il ne peut pas s’agir ici d’une liste des élus, ni d’un registre des œuvres,

11 Es. 65:6; Ps. 56:9; 139:16a: «Mes œuvres (TM g˘olmî, corr. : g emulay), tes yeux (les) ont vues, et sur ton livre elles seront toutes écrites (we #al sipr ek¯a kull¯am yikk¯at¯ebû)». Texte diﬃcile : le TM est vraisemblablement corrompu et, selon que l’on traduit l’inaccompli yikk¯at¯ebû au passé ou au présent/futur, le livre enregistre les actions déjà accomplies ou contient à l’avance toutes les actions de la vie ; rétribution dans un cas, prédestination dans l’autre… 12 r¯asˇûm est un hapax et un aramaïsme ; quant à k et¯ab, «document écrit», à part le passage de Ez. 13:9 cité plus haut, il est uniquement attesté dans les livres d’époque perse (Est., Dan., 1–2 Chr., Esd.-Néh.), le plus souvent pour désigner un document oﬃciel, une liste ou un décret émanant de la chancellerie royale. 13 Ex. 32:32–33 : «Eﬀace-moi du livre que tu as écrit» (meh¯enî nâ missipr ek¯a "˘ asˇer . k¯at¯abt¯a).

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

199

car Moïse et les pécheurs sont inscrits dans un seul et même livre14. De plus, le contexte ne comporte aucune dimension eschatologique, ce qui exclut l’idée d’un écrit conservé en vue d’un jugement. En revanche, être eﬀacé de ce livre équivaut à disparaître purement et simplement, à ne plus exister, ce qui signiﬁe que les êtres tiennent leur existence actuelle du fait qu’ils sont inscrits dans un livre écrit par Dieu. Le cas me semble identique au passage des Jubilés où les anges révèlent à Sarah le nom d’Isaac « tel qu’il est prescrit et inscrit sur les tables célestes » (Jub. 16:3). Ce nom est connu d’avance par les anges, car la vie de toute personne est depuis toujours inscrite dans les tables célestes. Bien que très allusivement donc, ce passage de l’Exode témoigne nettement d’une forme de prédestination associée au motif mésopotamien de la «table des destins ». On pourrait éventuellement inclure dans cette catégorie Ps. 139:16, mais le texte est susceptible de plusieurs interprétations (cf. note 11). La troisième mention d’un écrit céleste se trouve à la ﬁn de la grande vision de Daniel. Celle-ci s’achève avec l’assurance du salut pour le peuple d’Israël ou, tout au moins, pour « quiconque sera trouvé inscrit dans le livre » (12:1b : k˘ol hannims. ¯a" k¯atûb bass¯eper). Le s¯eper en question évoque à l’évidence une liste nominative de ceux qui seront sauvés, les justes ou les élus. On le trouve plus souvent sous la désignation «livre de vie » (s¯eper h. ayyîm)15. Je pense que c’est également au type «liste des élus » qu’il faut rattacher le « livre mémorial » (s¯eper zikk¯arôn) de Mal. 3:16–18, repris dans plusieurs textes de Qumrân16 ; le v. 17 montre sans doute possible que s¯eper zikk¯arôn réfère bien à une liste nominative et non à un registre des œuvres : Alors ceux qui craignent Yahvé se sont parlés l’un à l’autre et Yahvé prêta attention, il entendit, et devant lui fut écrit un livre mémorial concernant ceux qui craignent Yahvé et qui estiment son nom. 17«Ils m’appartiendront, dit Yahvé des puissances, propriété personnelle pour le jour que je prépare…» 16

Avec ce type « liste des élus », nous avons en fait la version eschatologique d’un motif mythique à peine attesté dans la Bible : celui d’un état civil céleste dans les registres duquel chacun est inscrit selon son Contrairement à Lange, op.cit. (note 3), p. 71 et García Martínez, art.cit. (note 3), p. 246. 15 Ps. 69:29; Jub. 36:10; 4Q504 VI:14. 16 4Q417 1 I:16; CD XX:17–21. 14

200

jean-marie husser

pays ou son peuple d’appartenance17. Dans la littérature apocalyptique cependant, le motif de la liste des élus provient plus directement d’une transposition eschatologique des listes nominatives d’appartenance ethnique ou territoriale, mentionnées en divers textes à propos du retour des déportés de Juda. On en trouve une première allusion dans Esaïe (4:2–3), un texte qui, dans son expression, prépare déjà les développements eschatologiques ultérieurs18. Ces listes nominatives sont plus précisément décrites dans Ezéchiel (13:9) où il est question de ne pas inscrire les faux prophètes «dans le registre de la maison d’Israël » (ûbik et¯ab bêt yi´sr¯a"¯el lô yikk¯at¯ebû), ce qui leur interdira tout retour au pays. Enﬁn, elles sont abondamment citées dans les livres d’Esdras (chap. 2) et de Néhémie (chap. 7), où elles sont désignées comme des « listes généalogiques » (s¯eper hayyah. a´s) dans le contexte de la tentative d’établir des règles précises d’appartenance au peuple élu. Le report dans l’eschaton de la réalisation des prophéties eut pour conséquence de transposer dans les réalités célestes et le monde à venir ces listes d’appartenance à la communauté des ﬁls d’Israël. Mais la propension de l’apocalyptique à délimiter une élite parmi les élus substitua tout naturellement une liste des élus aux listes généalogiques des clans. Comme pour le type «registre des œuvres », les écrits célestes de type «liste des élus » impliquent une perspective eschatologique, et c’est dans ce sens que le motif se perpétue dans les textes apocalyptiques ultérieurs19. Les visions de Daniel livrent ainsi une illustration bien caractérisée de chacun des trois types d’écrits célestes qui constituent le fonds de représentations communes à partir duquel les auteurs apocalypticiens se sont appropriés ce motif. Certaines de ces catégories peuvent se voir à l’occasion dédoublées, en fonction des besoins d’une présentation dualiste des choses : liste des élus / liste des réprouvés ; registre des œuvres bonnes / mauvaises. On retrouve ces trois types d’écrits célestes dans 1 Hénoch, mais il s’y ajoute des développements nouveaux. Remarquons d’emblée qu’aucun écrit céleste n’est mentionné dans le Livre des Veilleurs. Le type Voir Ps. 87:4–6. Es. 4:2–3 : «… tous ceux qui sont inscrits pour la vie à Jérusalem » (k˘ol hakk¯atûb lah. ayyîm bîrûˇs¯alaym). 19 1En. 47:3 ; 104:1; Jos.As. 15:3 ; Luc 10:20; Phil. 4:3 ; Heb. 12:23 ; Apoc. 3:5 ; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15 ; 21:27. 17 18

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

201

« registre des oeuvres » apparaît une fois dans le Livre astronomique (81:4) : « Bienheureux l’homme qui meurt juste et probe, contre lequel n’a été tenu aucun registre de méfait, pour être présenté au jour du Jugement »20. L’Epître en compte deux références (1 En. 98:7–8 ; 104:7). Il fait l’objet d’un développement particulier dans l’Apocalypse des animaux (chap. 85–90), où il est question de livres dans lesquels sont inscrits par un ange scribe les méfaits des soixante-dix pasteurs des nations, coupables d’avoir massacré plus de monde dans le peuple juif qu’ils n’en avaient le droit (89:59–77 passim). La scène du tribunal est décrite en des termes pratiquement identiques à ceux de Dan. 7 (1 En. 90:20) : «J’ai vu le moment où un trône fut dressé dans la terre délicieuse, et le Maître des moutons s’y assit. Il (l’ange scribe) prit tous les livres scellés et les ouvrit devant le Maître des moutons ». A la représentation traditionnelle du registre des œuvres se superpose, dans cette vision et vraisemblablement aussi dans Dan. 7, celle d’un monde céleste à l’image de l’administration impériale perse : les anges des nations sont surveillés par l’ange scribe à la manière des satrapes gouverneurs des provinces par un inspecteur royal, «l’œil du roi» ou «l’oreille du roi» dont parlent les auteurs grecs21. Comme en Daniel, ce « registre des œuvres » est associé à un contexte eschatologique. On trouve une allusion à une « liste des élus » dans l’Epître (1 En. 104:1) et une mention dans le Livre des Paraboles (47:3) comme «livre des vivants » ouvert devant la cour céleste à l’occasion du jugement. Le type « table des destins » se rencontre quatre fois sous la désignation spéciﬁque de «tables célestes »: une fois dans le Livre astronomique, les trois autres sont dans l’Epître22. L’usage du mot « table » (éth. s. el¯at) associe le motif mésopotamien de la « table des destins » (.tup sˇ¯ım¯ati) et la tradition biblique des tables de la Loi rédigées par Dieu. Le passage du Livre astronomique (1 En. 81:1–4) insiste sur la possibilité oﬀerte à Hénoch de lire lui-même ces tables célestes, qui sont «le livre de tous les actes des hommes, de tous les enfants de la chair sur la terre, jusqu’à la génération ﬁnale ». Cette référence aux tables célestes intervient en conclusion du traité d’astronomie et on peut penser qu’elles contiennent aussi les lois des luminaires et du calendrier solaire qui La traduction française de 1 Hénoch et Jubilés est celle de A. Caquot, op.cit. (note 3). Cf. Xen. Cyrop. VIII:6:16. Sur la question des inspecteurs royaux, hoi ephodoi, voir P. Briant, Histoire de l’Empire perse (Paris, 1996), pp. 355–356; S. Hirsch, The Friendship of the Barbarians. Xenophon and the Persian Empire (Hanover-London, 1985), pp. 101–134. 22 1En. 93:1–2 ; 103:1–4; 106:19–107:1 (cf. 4Q204 5 II:26–27) ; à quoi on peut ajouter 108:7, qui ne mentionne pas verbatim les tables célestes. 20 21

202

jean-marie husser

y ont été exposées. Dans l’Epître, les références aux tables célestes concernent la périodisation de l’histoire selon le septénaire (dans l’Apocalypse des semaines, 93:1–2), une annonce du déluge et de la mission de Noé (106:19 ; 108:7), le bonheur eschatologique réservé aux justes (103:1–4). Le contenu de ces tables célestes concerne donc globalement l’organisation du cosmos dans ses rythmes astronomiques, le déroulement de l’histoire jusqu’à l’achèvement des temps, la destinée des justes. C’est encore dans ce sens qu’on trouve les tables célestes dans les Testaments des XII Patriarches ; Lévi et Asher y ont lu le déroulement futur des événements23. Si l’on suit l’analyse de James VanderKam pour la datation de l’Epître24, on constate que les références aux tables célestes dans 1 Hénoch se situent toutes à une période pré-maccabéenne, et plus précisément entre 175 et 167 pour les quatre occurrences dans l’Epître. Le livre des Jubilés présente une double particularité : d’une part il uniformise sa terminologie en utilisant presque exclusivement l’expression « tables célestes », et d’autre part il rattache explicitement et exclusivement ce motif à la révélation des tables de la Loi au Sinaï. La date précise de composition du livre est objet de débat, mais on se rallie ici aux arguments de James C. VanderKam pour la situer vers 160–150 a.C.25. Il est donc vraisemblable que l’auteur a emprunté le motif au Traité astronomique ou à l’Epître d’Hénoch. Le terme revient une trentaine de fois, mais dans des sens assez diﬀérents et désigne des catégories pas toujours faciles à identiﬁer26. Le type «registre des œuvres » se retrouve une fois (39:6), sous la désignation spéciﬁque de « livres d’éternité » (mas. ¯ah. eft za-la- #¯alam). Quant à la catégorie « liste des élus », elle apparaît quand il est question d’Abraham (19:9), puis de Lévi ou de tout homme juste (30:18–20), qui se voient inscrits sur les tables célestes «comme amis de Dieu»27. L’auteur prend soin de préciser (30:22) qu’il s’agit bien ici du « livre de vie », montrant ainsi que, en dépit de sa terminologie très uniforme, il n’a pas perdu de TLev. 5:4; TAsh. 7:5. J.C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition, CBQMS 16 (Washington, 1984), pp. 142–149. 25 J.C. VanderKam, « The Origin and Purposes of the Book of Jubilees », in M. Albani et al. (eds), op.cit. (note 3), pp. 3–24. 26 Jub. 3:10,31; 4:32 ; 5:13 ; 6:17,29,31,35 ; 15:25 ; 16:3,28,29; 18:19; 19:9; 23:32 ; 24:33 ; 28:6; 30:9,19,20,22 ; 31:32 ; 32:10,15,28; 33:10; 49:8; 50:13. A ces 29 mentions explicites il convient d’ajouter une mention implicite (5:17–18) et deux mentions de «tables » que le contexte permet sans hésitation de qualiﬁer de «célestes » (32:21; 50:13). 27 Jub. 19:9; 30:18–22. 23 24

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

203

vue une certaine diversité dans les contenus et les fonctions des tables célestes. Toujours dans ce même passage, une répartition dualiste des êtres conduit à l’idée d’une double liste, l’une pour les amis, l’autre pour les ennemis de Dieu, celle des justes et celle des pécheurs. Le livre de vie se retrouve en 36:10 à propos de celui qui n’aime pas son frère et « ne sera pas porté sur le livre de vie ». Dans quelques cas, les tables célestes réfèrent encore de façon claire et immédiate aux tables des destins. C’est le cas dans le récit de la seconde vision de Jacob à Bethel, où le patriarche prend connaissance de sept tables célestes qui lui dévoilent l’avenir de sa descendance (32:20–26)28. On lit ailleurs pareillement que la vie et la destinée des individus ou des peuples s’y trouvent inscrites : Isaac (16:3), les descendants de Lot (16:9), les Philistins (24:33), l’histoire générale de l’humanité (23:32). Pour la majorité des cas cependant, les tables célestes désignent une catégorie d’écrits aux contours multiformes, qui associe l’antique représentation des tables des destins et celle, proprement biblique, des tables de la Loi, la Loi elle-même étant entendue dans un sens large de la sagesse créatrice et ordonnatrice de l’univers. Les Jubilés reprennent le récit qui va de Gen. 1 à Ex. 12, et se présentent comme un complément à la révélation de la Loi reçue par Moïse sur la montagne ; littérairement, l’ouvrage a la forme d’un midrash halachique de l’histoire patriarcale. Ben-Zion Wacholder a bien montré que, selon le récit introductif du prologue et du chapitre 1, ce n’est pas une Torah que Moïse a reçu sur la montagne, mais deux29. Dans un premier temps (Jub. 1:1–3), Dieu remet à Moïse, sur la montagne, pendant six jours, les tables de la Torah-commandement (hattôrâ wehammis. wâ). Puis, il retient Moïse pendant quarante autres jours et conﬁe à un ange de lui dicter le récit des événements qui ont eu lieu et qui arriveront, depuis la création jusqu’au renouvellement du ciel et de la terre et à l’établissement du sanctuaire de Dieu sur le mont Sion (Jub. 1:4,26–29). L’ange fait son récit à partir des « tables de la répartition des temps selon la Torah-attestation » (hattôrâ wehatt e #ûdâ). La formulation de l’hébreu, maintenant connue par les fragments de la

28 Le récit et le motif des tables célestes sont repris dans l’Apocryphe de Jacob retrouvé à Qumrân, 4QApJacob (4Q537 1:3–5). 29 B.-Z. Wacholder, « Jubilees as the Super Canon : Torah-Admonition versus TorahCommandment», in M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, J. Kampen (eds), Legal Texts and Legal Issues : Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organisation for Qumran Studies. Published in Honor of Joseph M. Baumgarten (Leiden, 1997), pp. 195–211.

204

jean-marie husser

grotte 4 de Qumrân30, met ainsi en parallèle et en concurrence deux Torah : la « Torah-commandement » (hattôrâ wehammis. wâ) de la première révélation et la «Torah-admonition » (hattôrâ wehatt e #ûdâ) de la seconde révélation31. Selon l’interprétation de Wacholder, l’auteur des Jubilés a construit cette opposition entre deux Lois à partir d’une exégèse de Deut. 31 : il identiﬁe la première Loi au livre remis par Moïse aux prêtres et aux anciens, les chargeant d’en faire une lecture publique (vv. 9–13), et il reconnaît la seconde dans le livre qu’il ordonne aux Lévites seuls de placer « auprès de l’Arche de l’alliance de Yahvé, où il sera comme témoin contre toi » (vv. 25–26). Selon l’auteur des Jubilés, il y avait donc une Loi donnée à la connaissance de tous, hattôrâ wehammis. wâ, et une Loi demeurée secrète et sous la garde des lévites, hattôrâ wehatt e #ûdâ. Cette dernière correspond au « cantique » de Moïse et fut destinée à servir de témoin contre l’apostasie des générations futures. Ce serait de ce «livre scellé de la Torah » (bspr htwrh hh. twm) dont parle le Document de Damas en disant que David n’en avait pas eu connaissance parce qu’elle était demeurée dans l’Arche jusqu’à l’avènement de Sadoq (CD V:1–5). D’après les termes mêmes des Jubilés (Jub. 1:4,26,29), cette seconde Loi, la Torah-admonition, consiste en «la répartition des temps » (mah. l eqôt ha #ittîm). L’expression annonce l’axe majeur de l’ouvrage—voire même son titre original32—qui est de ﬁxer les rythmes liturgiques ainsi que l’entier déroulement de l’histoire humaine jusqu’à son achèvement selon le calendrier solaire33. A propos de ce calendrier, l’ange précise à Moïse (Jub. 6:35) : « cela ne vient pas de moi, mais j’ai devant moi un texte écrit. C’est sur les tables célestes que les divisions du temps ont été instituées ». Cependant, cette «Torah-admonition » ne se limite pas aux computs calendaires. Elle développe également une législation qui recouvre et complète certaines prescriptions de la Torah-commandement, tout en 30 J. VanderKam, J.T. Milik, Qumran Cave 4, vol. VIII : Parabiblical Texts, Part 1, DJD 13 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 1–94. Le texte original complet, et en particulier l’expression lh. t mh. lqwt h #tym ltwrh wlt #wdh, est reconstitué par les éditeurs à partir de 4Q216 (4Q216 I:11; IV:4) et la rétroversion du texte éthiopien, pp. 1–22. 31 Référence à Es. 8:16: «Noue l’attestation, scelle l’instruction parmi mes disciples » (s. ôr t e #ûdâ h. a˘ tôm tôrâ belimmud¯ay), où la mention des disciples est certainement aussi importante que le binôme t e #ûdâ—tôrâ. 32 Selon Wacholder, art.cit. (note 30), p. 195. 33 C. Werman, «The äøåú and the äãåòú engraved on the tablets », DSD 9 (2002), pp. 75–103 (81–83).

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

205

proposant de nouvelles halakôt 34. Enﬁn, les tables célestes comportent les sanctions prévues pour les créatures qui faillissent aux lois de la création, ﬁxant ainsi la destinée des pécheurs et des réprouvés. Un passage est explicite à ce sujet (Jub. 5:13–14) : « Pour toutes (les créatures), la sentence a été prononcée et inscrite sur les tables célestes—et il n’y aura rien d’injuste—, et pour tous ceux qui s’écartent de la voie qui leur est ordonné de suivre. S’ils ne la suivent pas, la sentence a été inscrite (…) toute la sentence en est inscrite et gravée ». On trouve ainsi sur les tables célestes les sanctions aux transgressions des principales lois : règles du mariage endogame (Jub. 30:9), interdit de l’inceste (Jub. 33:10–12), loi du sabbat (Jub. 50:13). Il résulte de tout cela une notion assez complexe des « tables célestes ». En associant aussi étroitement qu’il le fait cette notion à la Torah révélée sur le mont Sinaï, l’auteur des Jubilés opère une judaïsation complète du vieux motif mésopotamien. Mais il identiﬁe aussi ces tables céleste à toutes les expressions de la Torah antérieurement révélées aux patriarches, à Hénoch, Noé, Abraham, Jacob, etc. C’est pourquoi la Torah des Jubilés est beaucoup plus large que la Torah écrite de Moïse (la Torah-commandement) : les tables célestes apparaissent comme l’archétype céleste d’une Torah en voie d’assimilation à la sagesse créatrice. Elles comportent une loi universelle régissant la marche du monde et l’ordre des choses, ﬁxant les sanctions aux transgressions de cette loi sous la forme d’une justice distributive entièrement préétablie. Il me semble donc que, avec les Jubilés, la catégorie «table des destins » perd de sa pertinence et doit être remplacée par celle de «tables célestes », à condition de garder la déﬁnition qui vient d’en être donnée. Si l’on considère rapidement l’utilisation du motif des écrits célestes dans les textes de Qumrân, on y retrouve les trois types jusqu’ici identiﬁés : le « registre des fautes », la « liste des élus » et les « tables célestes »35. Il est bien connu par le Document de Damas que les « élus du peuple saint » (bh. yry #m qwdˇs) ont leurs noms écrits dans des livres dont la réalité est autant céleste que terrestre. Les membres de la Communauté sont inscrits sur des registres selon leur rang (CD XIII:12), et ces listes nominatives répartissent les membres en quatre catégories : les prêtres, les lévites, les laïcs et les prosélytes (XIV:3–6). Mais ce même Document Voir la taxinomie faite par F. García Martínez, art.cit. (note 3). Voir F. Nötscher, «Himmlische Bücher und Schicksalglaube in Qumran », RevQ 1 (1959), pp. 405–411. 34 35

206

jean-marie husser

de Damas (XX:17–21) applique l’oracle de Mal. 3:16 aux membres de la Communauté, ce qui a pour eﬀet d’identiﬁer les listes nominatives de la Communauté au « livre mémorial » écrit au ciel devant Yahvé. Le Rouleau de la Guerre (1QM XII:1–3) va dans le même sens quand il écrit : « Le livre des noms de toute leur armée est avec toi dans ta sainte demeure »36. Comme on le voit, la « liste des élus » prend à Qumrân une dimension toute particulière en raison du contexte d’eschatologie réalisée dans lequel elle intervient : l’organisation concrète de la Communauté est l’expression terrestre d’une réalité céleste. C’est avec la signiﬁcation qu’il a acquise dans les Jubilés que le motif des tables célestes se retrouve à Qumrân : décret ﬁxé, ou gravé, réglant les temps et les voies de toutes les créatures, mais aussi loi universelle sanctionnant leurs défaillances. Parmi les passages concernés, le fragment de commentaire sur l’histoire du salut et les âges du monde (4QAgesCreat), précise que «ceci est gravé sur les tables [célestes] »37. Il s’agit, semble-t-il, d’une citation partielle de Ex. 32:16, ce qui n’empêche pas de restituer hˇsmym dans la lacune, compte tenu du sens que les Jubilés donnent à ces tables. Cependant, les textes de Qumrân font plus généralement appel à la notion de h. oq, « décret », pour désigner ce type d’écrit céleste. C’est le «décret du temps », dont la Règle de la Communauté dit qu’il revient au ma´skîl de l’enseigner38. Un peu plus loin dans la Règle, ce « décret » fait l’objet d’un hymne dont le texte célèbre le cours des astres, la répartition des temps et le rythme des saisons selon le calendrier des Jubilés ; il est appelé « décret gravé à jamais » (kh. wq h. rwt l #d) (1QS X:1,6– 8). La même thématique est reprise dans les Hymnes, à propos de l’univers qui « est inscrit devant Toi avec le burin du mémorial » (hkwl h. qwq lpnykh bh. rt zkrwn) (1QH I:23–24). Dans ce passage, comme dans le syntagme h. ôq h. arût, «décret gravé », la référence à une table gravée est évidente et c’est bien, au-delà des tables gravées de la Torah, aux tables célestes que renvoie ces expressions39. 1QM XII:1–3 : spr sˇmwt kwl s. b’m "tkh bm #wn qwdˇskh. 4Q180 1:3 : whw" h. rwt #l lh. wt [hˇsmym]. Voir à ce sujet le commentaire de A. Lange, op.cit. (note 3), p. 280. 38 1QS IX:13–14 : wlmwd "t kwl h´ skl hnms. " lpy h #tym w’t h. wq h #t « et il enseignera toute l’intelligence qui a été trouvée suivant les temps, ainsi que le décret du temps ». 39 Voir aussi 1QpHab VII:13–14 : «Tous les temps de Dieu arrivent à leur terme, conformément à ce qu’il a décrété 14à leur sujet dans les mystères de sa prudence » (kwl qys. y "l ybw’w ltkwnm k"ˇsr h. qq / lhm brzy #rmtw). En dépit de l’analogie de vocabulaire donc, le «burin du mémorial » (h. eret zikkarôn) dans les Hodayôt ne réfère pas à la même 36 37

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

207

Dans un passage déjà abondamment commenté de l’instruction de sagesse de la grotte 4, Mûs¯ar l eM¯evîn40, il est question d’un «décret gravé » et d’un « livre mémorial ». Selon la typologie que je propose, on trouve ici les deux types d’écrits célestes, « les tables célestes » et « la liste des élus ». Ils sont opposés l’un à l’autre à propos des sorts respectifs des ﬁls de Seth et du juste (4Q417 1 i:14–16) : « Et toi, (14) homme sensé, aspire à ta récompense grâce au mémorial [… ca]r il vient. Le décret est gravé, et toute rétribution est décrétée, (15) car est gravé ce qui est décrété par Dieu au sujet de toutes les f[autes] des ﬁls de Seth. Mais un livre mémorial est écrit devant Lui (16) pour ceux qui gardent Sa parole, et ceci est la vision de la méditation, un livre mémorial »41. L’ensemble du passage est une exhortation à méditer la sagesse de Dieu manifestée dans ses œuvres, ainsi que le «mystère à venir» (raz nihyeh) dans la perspective du jugement eschatologique. Ce «décret gravé » (h. rwt hh. wq) concerne visiblement ici la rétribution réservée aux pécheurs (les ﬁls de Seth, référence à Nb 24,17). Il s’agit ici de l’autre face du «décret » évoqué plus haut : non pas la loi cosmique réglant la marche du monde, mais les sanctions prévues pour les transgressions à l’ordre de la création. Symétriquement, le texte évoque le «livre mémorial », écrit devant Dieu, qui fait évidemment référence à Mal. 3:16, et où l’on reconnaît une «liste des élus », désignés ici comme « ceux qui gardent Sa parole ». Le motif des écrits célestes s’est constitué dans la littérature juive du Second Temple comme un élément particulier de l’angélologie, surtout depuis le début de la période hellénistique42. Chacune des catéreprésentation que le s¯efer zikkarôn dans Mal. 3:16, lequel, comme je l’ai dit plus haut, renvoie à une liste des élus. 40 Voir, directement en relation avec notre sujet: A. Lange, op.cit. (note 3), pp. 45– 92 ; F. García Martínez, «Wisdom at Qumran : Worldly or Heavenly ?», in F. García Martínez (ed.), Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition, BETL 168 (Leuven-Paris, 2003), pp. 1–15 ; E. Puech, « Apports des textes apocalyptiques et sapientiels de Qumrân à l’eschatologie du judaïsme ancien », ibid., pp. 133–170; J.J. Collins, «The Eschatologizing of Wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls », in J.J. Collins, G.E. Sterling, R.A. Clements (eds), Sapiential Perspectives : Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 51 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 49–66. 41 4Q417 1 I:14–16: w’th (14) mbyn rwˇ s p #lwtkh bzkrwn h[ k]y b" h. rwt hh. wq{kh} wh. qwq kwl hpqwdh (15) ky h. rwt mh. wqq l’l #l kwl #[w]n[w]t bny sˇyt wspr zkrwn ktwb lpnyw (16) lˇsmry dbrw whw’h h. zwn hhgy wspr zkrwn. Lecture de E. Puech à la ligne 15, art.cit. (note 40), p. 137, n. 10. 42 Pour le développement de l’angélologie, voir M. Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglaubens in vorrabbinischerzeit, TSAJ 34 (Tübingen, 1992).

208

jean-marie husser

gories d’écrits célestes se trouve en relation avec le monde angélique, mais à des titres divers. Les écrits de type «liste des élus » et «registre des oeuvres », par la fonction qu’ils remplissent dans l’eschatologie, se trouvent étroitement liés aux anges responsables du jugement. Ceux-ci peuvent apparaître comme les scribes responsables des comptes gardés dans des livres scellés en vue du jugement, bien que cela soit rarement explicite. La référence biblique à cette fonction est bien entendu l’ange scribe de Ez. 9 qui préside au châtiment de Jérusalem et marque au front les habitants qui en échapperont. La mise en œuvre la plus développée du motif se lit dans l’Apocalypse des animaux, où un ange scribe tient à jour les registres des exactions des soixante-dix pasteurs (1 En. 89:59–77 passim). Cet ange est implicitement identiﬁé à Michel (selon 90:14,22), l’ange gardien d’Israël, véritable « œil du roi ». En revanche, les écrits du type «table des destins » ou «tables célestes » sont en relation avec le monde angélique dans un contexte de révélation de connaissances à un visionnaire. Ils apparaissent comme la source d’un savoir réservé aux anges et communiqué à quelques médiateurs privilégiés. Cette fonction confère à ces hommes un statut tout particulier et les implique directement dans l’organisation des communautés humaines. Dans la grande vision de Daniel, le « livre de vérité » est apporté par l’ange qui en expose le contenu à Daniel (10:21). Mais cette révélation de l’écrit céleste intervient comme le dernier acte d’un processus. Le chapitre 9 comporte tous les éléments caractéristiques de l’interprétation des Écritures à laquelle prétendaient les apocalypticiens : une prophétie restée inaccomplie et donc mystérieuse (Jer. 25:11–14), un dévot visionnaire s’eﬀorçant de comprendre les Écritures (bînotî bassep¯arîm) tout en s’adonnant à la prière et à diverses formes d’ascèse (vv. 2–3), une apparition angélique (v. 20–21) au cours de laquelle l’ange instruit directement le visionnaire du sens caché de la prophétie (vv. 23–27). A ce point du récit, l’ange, tel un maître en Écritures, expose un véritable midrash interprétatif de la prophétie de Jer. 25. A partir de l’intervention de l’ange interprète, au milieu du chap. 8, et tout au long des deux visions ﬁnales, la situation est la même : Daniel reçoit sa révélation à la manière d’un disciple enseigné par un maître en midrash. Le vocabulaire utilisé est signiﬁcatif : les discours angéliques sont encadrés par des références lexicales à l’acquisition de l’intelligence ; Gabriel est envoyé à Daniel pour lui « faire comprendre » la vision (8:16–17: h¯ab¯en), pour lui «donner l’intelligence » (9:22 : l eha´skîl), il l’« instruit » (9:22 : y¯aben), le tout est ponctué d’exhortations caractéristiques d’un discours sapientiel : « Comprends la parole, aie le discer-

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

209

nement de la vision ! » (9:23 : bîn badd¯ab¯ar weh¯ab¯en bammar"eh), ou encore : « Sache donc, aie l’intelligence ! » (9:25 : wet¯eda # weta´sk¯el). Au terme de tous ces eﬀorts, Daniel «comprit la parole, il en eut la compréhension par la vision » (10:1 : bîn "et hadd¯ab¯ar ûbînâ lô bamar"eh)43. La ﬁgure de l’ange dans les visions de Daniel apparaît ainsi comme la transposition céleste d’un sage inspiré interprétant les Écritures à son disciple, autrement dit, comme une image de l’auteur lui-même. On s’accorde à reconnaître que cet auteur—et sans doute aussi l’éditeur du livre—est un membre de cette élite qu’il désigne sous le terme de ma´skîlîm, des maîtres de sagesse, spécialistes des Écritures et enseignant la multitude (Dan. 11:33,35 ; 12:3,10) ; on sait leur participation— vraisemblablement plus intellectuelle que combattante—à la révolte des Maccabées44. Ces sages, qui recherchent et enseignent le sens caché des Écritures, rompent avec l’antique tradition sapientielle qui voyait dans l’enseignement des anciens et l’expérience de l’âge la source première de la connaissance. Désormais, la sagesse inclut la connaissance des mystères de l’univers et l’interprétation des paroles de Dieu demeurées mystérieuses. Ces maîtres prétendent à une sagesse ésotérique qui est l’apanage des anges, révélée par l’esprit de prophétie pour les uns, par l’expérience visionnaire ou la lecture d’écrits mystérieux pour les autres45. Dans le récit apocalyptique de Daniel, l’ange révèle au visionnaire le contenu d’un livre céleste ou l’interprétation d’une prophétie. Cette relation de l’ange et du visionnaire, le premier enseignant le second, apparaît comme une « mise en abyme », une représentation du rapport unissant le maître de sagesse (ma´skîl) aux « nombreux » qu’il a instruits et rendus justes (11:33 ; 12:3). Sans doute même, la relation envisagée est-

43 Ce lexique est à comparer avec celui des récits araméens où l’interprétation des rêves et des visions—interprétation également inspirée—est exclusivement signiﬁée par la racine pˇsr. Nonobstant le changement de langue, le recours à ce vocabulaire indique l’appartenance de l’auteur de Dan. 8–12 à une tradition exégétique et à un groupe social. 44 R. Albertz, « The Social Setting of the Aramaic and Hebrew Book of Daniel », in J.J. Collins, P.W. Flint (eds), The Book of Daniel. Composition and Reception, SVT 83 (Leiden, 2001), 1, pp. 171–204 ; S. Beyerle, «The Book of Daniel and its Social Setting», ibid., 1, pp. 205–228. 45 Voir, entre autres, J.-M. Husser, Le songe et la parole. Etude sur le rêve et sa fonction dans l’ancien Israël, BZAW 210 (Berlin-New York, 1994), pp. 231–261 ; id., Dreams and Dreams Narratives in the Biblical World, Biblical Seminar 63 (Sheﬃeld, 1996), pp.155–165 ; A. Rofé, « Revealed Wisdom : From the Bible to Qumran », in : J.J. Collins et al. (eds), op.cit. (note 40), pp. 1–11.

210

jean-marie husser

elle beaucoup plus élitiste et ne concerne-t-elle que quelques disciples proches : « les nombreux » ne désignent à Qumrân que les membres de la Communauté. On n’échappe pas à cette similitude de vocabulaire avec les écrits de Qumrân qui révèle une continuité certaine entre les ma´skîlîm de Daniel et les destinataires des écrits fondateurs de la secte : la Règle de la Communauté témoigne que l’enseignement des rabbîm par des ma´skîlîm a été entre-temps institutionnalisé46. On ne peut non plus s’empêcher d’évoquer ici le m¯ebîn de 4QInstruction, auquel le maître enseigne le «mystère qui vient » en référence aux écrits célestes. Avant d’être un maître de sagesse inspiré, Daniel fut un disciple, et c’est cette ﬁgure de disciple qui est mise en évidence dans les récits de vision ; Daniel, mais aussi Hénoch, apparaissent comme des archétypes du m¯ebîn enseigné par un ma´skîl, et ce dernier acquiert une dimension angélique dans cette mise en récit qui l’identiﬁe à l’ange de la vision. A propos d’Hénoch, rappelons qu’une notice des Jubilés dit à son sujet qu’il « passa six jubilés d’années en compagnie des anges de Dieu qui lui montrèrent tout ce qui est sur la terre et dans les cieux » (Jub. 4:21). Celui qui est présenté comme le «scribe de justice » (1 En. 12:3–4) ou le « scribe de vérité » (15:1) fut d’abord le disciple assidu des anges. Le cadre narratif des révélations d’Hénoch insiste sur cet enseignement reçu des anges et peut s’interpréter de la même façon que dans Daniel. Dans le triptyque des expériences initiatiques d’Hénoch : visions, enseignement des anges, lecture des tables célestes47, on retrouve la transposition idéalisée de ce qui faisait la formation du jeune m¯ebîn hénochien : les exercices ascétiques (prières, méditations, jeûnes), éventuellement suivis de visions ; la ﬁgure du maître de sagesse ; les écrits «célestes » transmis sous le nom d’Hénoch. Cette identiﬁcation du maître et de l’ange dans la mise en récit peut être lue comme une manière d’exprimer le caractère révélé de la connaissance reçue par chaque initié. Il y a cependant, entre Daniel et Hénoch, une diﬀérence importante, qui reﬂète vraisemblablement des attitudes communautaires elles aussi diﬀérentes. Hénoch fut «le premier des humains nés sur la terre à apprendre l’écriture, la sagesse et la science » (Jub. 4:17) ; il n’est pas, comme Daniel, un interprète d’écrits existants, mais l’initiateur de

46 Voir sur ce point P.R. Davies, «The Scribal School of Daniel », in J.J. Collins, P.W. Flint (eds), op. cit. (note 44), 1, pp. 247–265. 47 Cf. 1En. 93:2 : «Voici, mes enfants, ce que j’ai à vous dire et à vous faire savoir, moi Hénoch, selon ce qui m’a été montré par la vision céleste, ce que j’ai appris de la parole des saints Veilleurs, et ce que j’ai compris des tables célestes ».

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

211

toute écriture et de toute science, celui qui reçut la sagesse des anges antérieurement à toute autre révélation. Il est donc beaucoup plus qu’un interprète des prophéties—fût-il inspiré—, il est un véritable initié à la communauté des anges et aux mystères du monde. Hénoch apparaît comme le fondateur et le modèle éponyme de cercles d’initiés qui prétendent à une véritable gnose, une connaissance universelle et ésotérique, antérieure à toute prophétie. Les membres de ces cercles hénochiens entretiennent avec leurs écrits et leurs auteurs les mêmes relations que le livre décrit entre Hénoch, les tables célestes et les anges. Le livre des Jubilés, sensiblement postérieur aux visions de Daniel et aux premiers recueils d’Hénoch, reproduit une situation à certains égards analogue : Moïse est instruit par une ﬁgure angélique et transcrit sous sa dictée le contenu des tables célestes. Le contexte cependant est celui de l’alliance conclue au Sinaï, et non pas celui d’une révélation privée (comme dans Daniel) ou primordiale (comme dans Hénoch) : l’attention à la Torah est fondamentale. Comme on l’a vu cependant, si la Torah de Moïse est centrale, elle se trouve aussi redéﬁnie ; tout d’abord par l’ajout d’une seconde Torah qui relativise la Torah-commandement. Puis, les Jubilés évoquent une tradition ininterrompue d’écrits antérieurs à Moïse, révélés par les anges à divers patriarches à partir de ces même tables célestes : après Hénoch, ce fut Noé qui écrivit tout le savoir médical que les anges lui enseignèrent (Jub. 10:9–14), puis Abraham, qui recopia et étudia les écrits de ses ancêtres Hénoch et Noé (Jub. 12:27 ; 21:10) ; enﬁn Jacob, qui eut à Bethel la vision de sept tables célestes relatant « ce qui lui arriverait ainsi qu’à ses ﬁls dans tous les âges ». Il en copia ﬁdèlement le contenu et remit à sa mort «tous ses livres ainsi que les livres de ses pères à son ﬁls Lévi » (Jub. 32:20–26 ; 45:16). Le sacerdoce lévitique est ainsi présenté comme l’héritier d’une tradition écrite remontant aux origines de l’humanité, inspirée par les tables célestes, et qui s’ajoute aux deux Lois reçues par Moïse. Ce point a depuis longtemps été relevé comme indicateur de l’origine sacerdotale du livre des Jubilés, et il a été bien montré l’importance de cette construction narrative dans la légitimation d’une halakah sacerdotale qui fonde son autorité sur l’écrit plutôt que sur le commentaire oral48. Mais c’est surtout la fonction du prêtre comme transmetteur et interprète privilégié d’une Torah dont lui seul connaît la totalité, qui est légitimée par cette «mise en abyme » du récit : cette littérature ésotérique héritée García Martínez, art.cit. (note 3) ; J.C. VanderKam, art.cit. (note 25), pp. 18s. ; H. Najman, art.cit. (note 3). 48

212

jean-marie husser

d’Hénoch, de Noé et de Jacob, fait de Lévi et de ses successeurs dans la charge les équivalents terrestre de l’ange porteur des tables célestes. On sait le lien toujours croissant établi depuis le retour d’exil entre la fonction sacerdotale et le monde angélique ; la représentation d’une liturgie céleste comme modèle du culte terrestre trouve son expression la plus achevée dans les Shabbat Shirot de Qumrân (4Q400–407)49. Cependant, la participation des maîtres apocalypticiens au privilège sacerdotal d’être associé au monde angélique est à souligner: par une vision de Zacharie, le grand prêtre Josué apprend qu’il sera par sa fonction associé à la communauté des anges oﬃciant dans le ciel (Zach. 3:7) ; un peu plus de deux siècles plus tard, un ange prédit à Daniel que les ma´skîlîm seront associés à l’armée des cieux (les anges) après la résurrection (Dan. 12:3)50. Entre-temps, l’identiﬁcation progressive de la sagesse universelle à la Torah comme loi cosmique, conduit à considérer les anges comme les médiateurs par excellence de la sagesse et des sciences en général. La question de l’appartenance des auteurs des livres concernés à la caste sacerdotale se pose diﬀéremment pour chacun d’entre eux : on a dit plus haut ce qu’il en est des Jubilés ; l’origine sacerdotale des groupes hénochiens est généralement admise51 ; quant à Daniel, je pense que l’éditeur du livre et auteur des chap. 7–12 était un sage laïque, en dépit de son indéniable proximité avec l’idéologie sacerdotale52. Si cette lecture est recevable, le schéma littéraire « ange—écrits célestes—héros visionnaire » constitue la mise en récit d’un schéma initiatique sur lequel se sont organisés un certain nombre de courants plus ou moins ésotériques dans la première moitié du IIe siècle a.C. Ces courants ne concernent qu’une élite, sacerdotale ou proche des milieux sacerdotaux. Ils se distinguent les uns des autres par leurs relations spéciﬁques à l’écrit, tant aux Écritures « canoniques » qu’à leurs écrits propres. Ils se ressemblent par une même attention porC. Newsom, The Songs of Sabbath Sacriﬁce: A Critical Edition, HSS 27 (Atlanta, 1985). J.J. Collins, Daniel. A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, 1993), p. 393. 51 Voir les contributions à G. Boccaccini (ed.) The Origins of Enochic Judaism, Henoch 24 (2002). Pour une interprétation sacerdotale de la fonction d’Hénoch et du monde céleste dans le Livre des Veilleurs, voir G.W.E. Nickelsburg, «Enoch, Levi and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee », JBL 100 (1981), pp. 575–600; pour l’attitude critique de ces milieux envers l’establishment sacerdotal de Jérusalem, voir D. Sutter, « Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1Enoch », HUCA 50 (1979), pp. 115–134. 52 Avec P.R. Davies, art. cit. (note 46). 49 50

scribes inspirés et écrits célestes

213

tée à la pureté du culte, notamment du calendrier, et par une identiﬁcation de la fonction du maître de sagesse à une ﬁgure angélique qui révèle à ses disciples les secrets des écrits célestes. Dans la mise en récit des expériences visionnaires, les héros éponymes de ces courants : Daniel, Hénoch, Lévi, sont devenus des ﬁgures idéalisées du maître et du disciple apocalypticien, ma´skîl lui-même enseigné par les anges. L’ensemble de ces traits se retrouvent quelques décennies plus tard dans les écrits de Qumrân.

RHYME AND REASON: THE HISTORICAL RÉSUMÉ IN ISRAELITE AND EARLY JEWISH THOUGHT

Carol A. Newsom The American humorist Mark Twain once remarked that history may not repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme. Although he expressed the idea cleverly, he is not the ﬁrst person to have observed the human tendency to look for patterns in history and to reason by means of them. As universal as this tendency may be, it does not ﬁnd expression in the same way in every culture, nor is the concern to discern such patterning equally intense. But one cannot read the literature of Second Temple Judaism, both canonical and noncanonical, without being struck by the frequency of what one can call “historical résumés,” that is, schematic narratives that recount the major events in history, often in ways that highlight the “rhyming” quality of history. While some of the most remarkable examples occur in apocalypses (e.g., the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse in 1 Enoch or the Cloud Vision in Syriac Baruch), the phenomenon is much more widespread, occurring in liturgical and prayer texts (e.g., Psalm 106 and Nehemiah 9), in narrative ﬁction (Achior’s recitation of Israelite history in Judith), and in Jewish Hellenistic historiography (Josephus’ speech before the walls of Jerusalem in the Jewish War). Though extremely popular in the Second Temple period, such historical résumés are also found in earlier Israelite literature, in the Deuteronomistic History (e.g., Joshua 24, 1 Samuel 12) and in prophetic texts (Ezekiel 20). Although I will not be able to explore the question of the origin of this phenomenon in this paper, I think it most likely that it developed in liturgical contexts, perhaps along the lines of the recitations cited in Deuteronomy 6:20–23 and 26:5b–9. My concern here is rather with the baroque variety of the developed phenomenon. Indeed, the extraordinary literary variety of such texts prevents one from speaking of the historical résumé as a genre. Nevertheless, the use of the résumé as a principle of composition in such diverse texts suggests that it was an important cultural mode of cognition. And it is that–the historical résumé as a mode of cognition– that is my focus. What I mean is simply that narrating history is a way

216

carol a. newsom

of thinking, a way of constructing meaning from events by casting them in narrative or story form. The relationship between narrative and cognition has attracted considerable interest in several ﬁelds in recent years. Cognitive science, for instance, has argued that narrative is fundamental to human cognition per se. The brain organizes spatio-temporal phenomena in narrative patterns.1 Through narrative, coherence is produced. But narrative does not merely organize–it also explores and creates. The human mind thinks by projecting one story onto another and blending them in ways that produce new insight–and this is the source of symbolic thinking. Indeed, as cognitive theorist Mark Turner observes, “Narrative imagining–story–is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.”2 Though the insights of cognitive science are directly helpful at points, their focus tends to be on the basic processes of thought themselves. More immediately relevant to my purposes is the lively discussion that has taken place in recent years among theorists of historiography concerning the relationship between narrative and history. Increasingly, the claim is made that narrative plays an essential role, not only in conceptualizing and recounting history but even in the structure of historical events themselves. (See, among others, historians Louis Mink,3 Hayden White,4 Allen Megill,5 Reinhart Koselleck,6 and philosopher Paul Ricoeur.7) One might think that, if I am interested in the relationships among narrative, history, and cognition, that I should turn to the great historiographies of the Hebrew Bible, the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicler’s. But the historical résumés oﬀer certain advantages. 1

14.

Mark Turner, The Literary Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 13–

Turner, The Literary Mind, pp. 4–5. Louis O. Mink, “Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument,” in: Brian Fay, Eugene O. Golob and Richard T. Vann (eds), Historical Understanding, (Cornell: Ithaca University Press, 1987), pp. 182–203. 4 Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). 5 Allen Megill, “‘Grand Narrative’ and the Discipline of History,” in: Frank Ankersmit and Hans Kellner (eds), A New Philosophy of History, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 151–173. 6 Reinhart Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Trans. by Todd Samuel Presner et al. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). 7 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative. 3 vols. Trans. by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984–1988). 2 3

rhyme and reason

217

Not only are they numerous and varied, but because of their strongly schematized structure, they lay bare certain cognitive features that are present but largely implicit in the longer historical narratives. Moreover, tracing the career of the historical résumé in early Judaism may also suggest some limitations to the power of historical cognition that have been overlooked by recent theorists. One other consideration recommends the historical résumés of Israelite and early Jewish literature as an object of interest. These résumés represent the origin of one of the most signiﬁcant historiographical phenomena in western culture–that of the “master” or “grand narrative.” One of the functions of all historical cognition is to discern some sort of coherence in the events of the past. But the degree and scope of coherence varies. What one calls master narratives articulate the authoritative account of some extended segment of history; the grand narrative oﬀers the authoritative account of history generally.8 These narratives have a special function. As one recent writer observed, “A master narrative that we ﬁnd convincing and persuasive diﬀers from other stories in an important way: it swallows us. It is not a play we can see performed, or a painting we can view, or a city we can visit. A master narrative is a dwelling place that encompasses our ideas about the history of our culture, its possibilities, and our own identity. We are intended to deﬁne our lives within it.”9 For many centuries it was the Christian theological version of the grand narrative that dominated western culture. But the intellectual prestige of the grand narrative actually reached its zenith as it began to be secularized in the eighteenth century’s focus on universal history (as reﬂected in Kant, Schiller, Hegel, and others). The concept of the grand narrative of universal history continued to be inﬂuential up until the middle of the twentieth century, its last great practitioners being Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. Master and grand narratives have been oﬃcially proclaimed dead by postmodernism, of course. But even though few would defend the program on theoretical grounds, there is ample evidence that attempts to discern coherence on a broad scale continues. What, after all, is Samuel Huntington’s controversial book, The Clash of Civilizations, if not an attempt to construct a master narrative of East and West and to use it for the purpose of discerning Megill, pp. 152–153. Robert Fulford, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture (New York: Broadway Books, 1999), p. 32. 8 9

218

carol a. newsom

the future. Master narratives may take on new forms, may be slightly less ambitious than the “universal histories” of old, but they are unlikely to disappear, because they answer to a persistent human desire to seek coherency over the largest possible scale. Thus by studying the Jewish master narratives that stand at the source of this tradition, we may be able to perceive some of the features responsible for the extraordinary appeal of this cultural form. Before turning to the historical résumés themselves, one last bit of theoretical scene setting is necessary. Of the various accounts of how narrative coherence is achieved, I ﬁnd most helpful that of Paul Ricoeur in Time and Narrative, in particular his analysis of narrative structure and its relation to temporality. As Ricoeur observes, narrative involves two types of temporality. There is the chronological temporality of a succession of events, one following the other. This is the episodic dimension of narrative. But this so-called “natural” order to time provides only minimal coherence, the coherence one ﬁnds in a simple chronicle. It is only as these events are emplotted, organized “into an intelligible whole” that they become a story. Ricoeur calls this the act of “conﬁguration” of the events. Emplotment, the conﬁguration of the events, allows them to be experienced not simply as a series but to be “grasped together” in “the unity of one temporal whole.” Emplotment “extracts a ﬁgure from a succession.”10 Although Ricoeur notes that this conﬁguration allows one to translate the plot into one “thought” or “theme,” he rightly insists that this is not an atemporal dimension. Rather, emplotment bends time, so that instead of a sense that things could go on forever, “the conﬁguration of the plot imposes the ‘sense of an ending’ … on the indeﬁnite succession of incidents.”11 Moreover, when a story is repeated and well-known, emplotment also allows one to invert the “natural” order of time, so that one can “read the ending in the beginning and the beginning in the ending.”12 Thus Ricoeur draws attention to two coordinated but distinct forms of temporality in narrative: the chronological time of the succession of events and the conﬁgured time of emplotment. Yet there is one other aspect of temporality that Ricoeur does not investigate, but one that occurs frequently in the historical résumés–and that is the temporality of rhythm,

10 11 12

Ricoeur, vol. 1, p. 66. Ricoeur, vol. 1, p. 67. Ricoeur, vol. 1, p. 67.

rhyme and reason

219

which serves both to enhance the conﬁguration by repeating it but also to undermine its eﬀect of closure by this same repetition. One of the signiﬁcant features of historical narratives (and of many traditional ﬁctional narratives, for that matter) is that the audience is generally assumed already to know the material. The events are familiar, and their sequence generally agreed upon. Thus telling the narrative does not serve to convey information. Indeed, much more is known than can be put into any particular version of the story. The cognitive power of narrative is rather to construct and convey signiﬁcance. To tell the story is to establish certain criteria of relevance: which of the things that everyone knows belong in the story and which things do not. Thus the narrator must ﬁrst identify the “subject of history.” For the historical résumés this is most commonly the people of Israel, but not always. The scope of the story is another element–what will be the relevant beginning point and the relevant ending point? Obviously, this element is closely connected with the emplotment of events–what sort of conﬁguration governs the narration and allows it to be grasped as a temporal whole, so that the end and the beginning are seen as compellingly meaningful or true? The knowledge that the audience possesses of the set of events and details that might be chosen for narration is largely passive knowledge. If the emplotment succeeds in creating coherence, then what is left out will not be noticed by the audience as an omission that threatens the plausibility of the narration. Instead the details not chosen will simply be experienced as not relevant to the story in question. The conﬁgured plot thus acts as a ﬁlter that clears away the static that could be caused by too much information, even as it organizes the relevant details into a meaningful pattern. Signiﬁcantly, this means that many stories can be told from the same body of cultural tradition. Diﬀerent subjects and diﬀerent emplotments select diﬀerent events and details. While such stories could be told as rival stories in ideological conﬂict with one another, it is just as likely that they will be seen as diﬀerent but equally true stories. This potential for multiple stories to be told from the same body of traditional material is of the greatest importance for cultural change and adaptation, for it allows new knowledge to be derived from that which is already known and familiar. In this brief article, I can only touch on a few representative examples of historical résumés, and I will concentrate on those represented in the canonical literature. The résumés in 1 Samuel 12 and Joshua 24 present an instructive contrast in techniques of emplotment. 1 Samuel

220

carol a. newsom

12, Samuel’s speech, constructs a strongly “rhyming” history, that is, it organizes the relevant history according to three cycles of similarly structured events (the period of the Exodus, the period of the Judges, and the immediate crisis provoked by the aggression of the Ammonite king Nahash). The résumé is set under the rubric of the “saving deeds,” the s. idqot of Yahweh, and its focus is speciﬁcally on the provision of leadership. This emphasis is reﬂected in the selection of details, which include an abundance of personal names of various leaders. The cognitive problem to be addressed is how the people should assess the moral signiﬁcance of their request for a king. The pattern constructed in the résumé consists of the following elements: a Situation that leads to Oppression, provoking an Outcry, followed by God’s Provision of Leadership, and the Result. But the ﬁrst two cycles are not entirely parallel. In the Exodus cycle the people are merely victimized by oppression. In the cycle of the Judges the people’s “forgetting Yahweh” is the situation that provokes oppression as punishment, and the outcry includes a recognition of the people’s sinfulness. Thus Samuel actually presents the people with two possible historical analogies–to which analogy does the present situation belong, if either? The people apparently see their situation simply as victimization, or so Samuel initially presents it (“and when you saw that Nahash … came against you …,” v. 12a). But in fact, the situation is one of sinful failure, as Samuel shows by framing the people’s very outcry for help as itself an act of “forgetting Yahweh.” “And you said to me, “No, a king must reign over us”–even though Yahweh your God is your king.” The people recognize the aptness of the analogy and confess, “we have added to all our sins the evil of asking for a king for oursleves” (v. 19b). The act of historical cognition in 1 Samuel 12 emphasizes conﬁguration more than chronology, emplotting the past in ways that emphasize a strong cause and eﬀect relationship between events, and making the past usable as a series of analogies to guide thinking about the present. The forms of historical cognition in Joshua 24 oﬀer a contrast. Here, as Joshua seeks to get the people to reaﬃrm their devotion to Yahweh, he recites the people’s history–or rather Joshua quotes Yahweh’s recitation of the people’s history–beginning with Terah and ending with the audience’s present moment in the promised land. In this résumé there is no pronounced cyclical repetition. Events are not represented as strongly causally connected to one another. Instead, they are presented more episodically, in terms of chronological sequence. “This happened, then that happened, then this happened …” This is not

rhyme and reason

221

to say that the résumé is without conﬁguration, of course. But if one may think of conﬁguration as consisting of both paradigmatic and syntagmatic elements, or, one might say, metaphoric and metonymic, then here the metonymic is more evident. The account begins with a pronounced genealogical structure, connecting Terah to Abraham and Nahor, Abraham to Isaac, and Isaac to Esau and Jacob, before continuing with the story of Jacob’s children. Similarly, there is geographical metonomy, as the story is primarily emplotted as a journey– from Transeuphrates to Canaan, then to Egypt, then out of Egypt, into the wilderness, to the land of the Amorites, across the Jordan to Jericho, and ﬁnally to secure occupation of the land. Though episodic in structure, the events are carefully selected to establish a central theme– divine protection. God multiplies Abraham’s oﬀspring, frees the people from Egypt, defeats the Egyptian army, delivers the Amorites into Israel’s hands, requires Balaam to bless Israel, and defeats Israel’s enemies in Canaan by means of a plague. While journey plots are often episodic and metonymic, the ﬁgure of the journey itself has metaphorical force. Journeys often ﬁgure transformation of identity, as they tell a story of leaving one place and arriving in another. The crises of the journey provide the knowledge that eﬀects transformation. Thus journey plots invite one to see, as Ricoeur put it, the end in the beginning and the beginning in the end. And so it is here. The story began with a description of the ancestors who lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods. In light of the story of the journey the people are given a choice–will they serve the God whom they have come to know as deliverer from danger during the journey or will they, in a sense, reverse the journey and serve the gods of their ancestors beyond the Euphrates (or, indeed, will they go too far into a new identity in a new land and serve the gods of the Amorites)? As 1 Samuel 12 and Joshua 24 illustrate contrasting forms of emplotment, Psalms 105 and 106 provide an opportunity to examine the issue of multiple histories. Certainly in the United States, and I suspect in most other countries, heated debates rage over the adequacy of histories that omit all controversial and embarrassing episodes versus those that highlight just such events that depict the nation at its worst. I freely acknowledge that irresponsibly tendentious history writing occurs, but often the way the debate is framed seems to assume that there is only one history to be told and that the task of the historian is to get it right. But is that the case? The historiographical assumptions reﬂected in the pairing of Psalms 105 and 106 implies a diﬀerent way of under-

222

carol a. newsom

standing historical cognition. Stylistic diﬀerences suggest that these two poems were not intentionally composed as a pair; but they do appear to have been intentionally placed next to one another in the psalter in a manner that draws attention to their contrast. Psalm 105 recounts the history of Israel from Abraham to the promised land as a story of divine providential protection: protection from oppression in Canaan, from famine, from oppression in Egypt, from dangers in the wilderness. Psalm 106 retells much of the same period in such a way that it is perceived as a period of almost constant rebellion. It is certainly not the case that one telling is right and the other wrong. Rather, each one tells the truth, but–intentionally–not the whole truth. But how is it possible to read them together–as many readers do–without a sense that the common history has been falsiﬁed? Here one sees the vital cognitive role played by the force of internal narrative coherency. Each poem emplots the story diﬀerently, a choice that dictates a diﬀerent selection of the relevant beginning and ending points, and a diﬀerent conﬁguration of temporality. These choices establish diﬀerent criteria of relevancy, so that what is left out is not denied so much as it is just not immediately relevant for the process of meaning making. Thus, much like Joshua 24, Psalm 105 makes use of a journey motif, which begins with Abraham and ends in the promised land. Despite certain rhythmic elements, the narrative has a strong linear movement. The natural sense of an ending that a journey story has–arrival at the destination–is enhanced by the way the psalm explicitly frames the story with the theme of fulﬁllment of a divine promise to Abraham, which marks the beginning (vv. 8–11) and the ending (vv. 42–45) of the account, giving the story wholeness and completion. The intense closure of the narrative does not invite one to think of how history might continue after “he gave them the lands of nations … that they might keep His laws and observe His teachings” (v. 44–45). The psalm gives no indication of how far the speaker stands chronologically from the events described. Indeed, the psalm’s rhetorical purpose is to make this time in some sense the audience’s own, to allow them to dwell within the master narrative. This is history in which recollection serves as normative prescription. By contrast, Psalm 106 establishes the criteria of relevance for its account of the history through the confession in v. 6 (“We have sinned like our ancestors; we have gone astray, done evil”). In contrast to the linearity of Psalm 105, Psalm 106 has an intensely repetitious structure. Only one thing happens, over and over–the rebellion of the people

rhyme and reason

223

against God. The period framed is ostensibly much longer than that of Psalm 105, since Psalm 106 begins its account in Egypt and concludes with the speakers’ present situation in exile and diaspora. But that is somewhat misleading. Those who construct narrative also shape time, slowing it down by narrating many episodes from a short period, speeding it up by choosing few events from a larger period. So here, some 27 verses and all of the episodes described with speciﬁc details occur in the Exodus and Wilderness period. The long centuries from the entry into the land until the captivity and dispersion are foreshortened into 10 verses of extremely generalized narration, with most of that referring to the period of the Judges. It is as though nothing new can happen, so that the very act of telling history exhausts itself. All that one needs to know occurred at the beginning. The rhetorical purpose of the psalm, however, is to recite history in such a way that a future does open. Thus there is no resounding closure, such as one ﬁnds in Psalm 105. That would be counterproductive. Rather, the recitation concludes by creating the sense of a curiously unﬁnished story. In vv. 44–46 God hears the people’s cry of distress in exile and in his h. esed makes their captors compassionate toward them. But that is not a satisfying ending. Anyone who knows narrative knows that something more needs to happen to bring the story to a conclusion. By reawakening the sense of being in the midst of an unﬁnished story, the narrator rekindles hope. For people do see their lives, individually and collectively, as unfolding stories–which is why narrative history is such a powerful tool of social construction. The concluding plea for deliverance in v. 47 also harks back to the ﬁrst episode, the one at the Sea of Reeds, which is, signiﬁcantly, the only incident in the résumé in which, despite the people’s rebellion, God delivered them “for the sake of his name” (v. 8). So at the end, the speaker envisions a parallel event (“gathering us from among the nations”) that would bring successful completion to the story and be an occasion for “praising your holy name” (v. 47). What then does the pairing of these highly selective and sharply contrasting recitations of Israel’s history suggests about the nature of historical cognition? Instead of the model of a single uniﬁed history that must be narrated in a single way, this material suggests that history sometimes can only be rendered adequately by juxtaposing multiple narratives, each with its own coherency, each with its own truth. To be sure, each rendering must be answerable to agreed upon facts; history can be falsiﬁed. But historical cognition is always partial and therefore requires

224

carol a. newsom

multiple tellings from a variety of perspectives. The historiographical practices of ancient Israel, as exempliﬁed in Psalms 105–106 complicate the very notion of the “master narrative” and allow one to ask if the postmodern critique has been too simplistic. In an essay on “Mastern Narratives and the Patterns of History,” Robert Fulford describes the consternation attending the celebration in 1992 of the ﬁve hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ voyage and what he describes as the collapse of “the master narrative centered on Christopher Columbus.”13 But one need not be forced to choose between the intolerable ideological closure of a single master narrative and the incoherence of proliferating micronarratives. As the Israelite practice suggests, it is possible to combine the human desire for comprehensive narrative coherency with the reality of history’s complexity. In Ezekiel 20, one encounters perhaps the most bizarre manifestation of the historical résumé. This chapter is often referred to as a “revisionist” history of Israel, though this is to understate the nature of its discrepancy from other renditions of Israel’s history. It is probably not the case that Ezekiel depends on divergent traditions not otherwise represented in the surviving sources, though that cannot be ruled out entirely. He seems rather to engage in an intentionally inventive recasting of tradition. Not only does he trace Israel’s history of apostasy back to an otherwise unattested worship of Egyptian idols (v. 8), but even the description of the wilderness period alludes to violations of Sabbaths and other laws (v. 13) that appear to belong to Ezekiel’s imaginative construction rather than to commonly held tradition,14 as does his distinction between the giving of two sets of laws, one that gives life and another, punitive set of “not good laws” that lead to death.15 As with Ezekiel’s allegorical histories of Israel in chapters 16 and 23, chapter 20 is not so much a venture in revisionism as it is a foray into an intentionally grotesque historiography. I do not wish, however, to take refuge in the distinction made by Block, between “true reconstruction of the past” and Ezekiel’s “rhetorical” purposes.16 All of the historical recitaFulford, p. 36. Daniel I Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, NICOT (Grand Raids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 633. 15 I do not ﬁnd persuasive the recent attempt of Scott Walker Hahn and John Seitze Bergsma, “What Laws Were ‘Not Good’? A Canonical Approach to the Theological Problem of Ezekiel 20:25–26,” JBL 123 (2004), pp. 201–218, to argue that the “not good” laws refer to Deuteronomy. 16 Block, p. 640. 13 14

rhyme and reason

225

tions in the biblical text are “rhetorical”; applying that label does not solve the puzzle of Ezekiel. Nor do I wish simply to declare him a bad historian and move on. Since my concern is with historical cognition, what I want to know is what historiographical dilemma leads someone like Ezekiel to construct a historical summary that both he and his audience would recognize as at odds with the received tradition, not just in its emphasis but in many of its facts. What is at stake? Perhaps the answer can be found in a statement by the philosopher of history R.G. Collingwood. Collingwood asserted that “every present has a past of its own, and any imaginative reconstruction of the past aims at reconstructing the past of this present.”17 One of the functions of history writing is to show how the present emerges out of the past. Seen in this perspective, Ezekiel’s grotesque history is in fact an accusation that a crisis exists in historical understanding itself. The present that he confronts simply cannot, in his view, be explained in light of the existing constructs of history. The radical apostasy of this present requires a history that can do justice to it and serve as an adequate past for this present. As many commentators have rightly noted, Ezekiel constructs the history of Israel precisely by projecting his accusations about present failures into the past.18 Ezekiel has, as it were, taken the dictum of Collingwood and radically literalized it, inventing the only past that can account for this present. A later, and rather diﬀerent sense of a crisis in historiography seems to be reﬂected in the book of Daniel, ﬁrst in the diaspora stories of Daniel 1–6 and subsequently in the apocalypses of Daniel 7–12. The radical move that the book of Daniel makes is to “change the subject”– literally. Every writing of history must determine what the subject of history is to be. In the rest of the Hebrew Bible the subject of history is the relationship between Yahweh and the people of Israel. Daniel 2, in particular, changes the subject of history, and the radicalness of this move can scarcely be overstated. The subject of history for Daniel 2 is not the history of Israel but the history of sovereignty, the history of malkut. Evidently, the traditional history that organized itself primarily by reference to Yahweh and Israel was perceived as no longer adequate R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (New York: Oxford, 1946), p. 247. Cited in Megill, p. 163. 18 Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, AB 22 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 383. 17

226

carol a. newsom

to present realities. Instead, Daniel takes an alien master narrative and inserts Israel into its story. This claim requires some nuancing. Within biblical tradition the common references in historical résumés to the nations and their kings as instruments of punishment for the apostasy of the people had been supplemented in the prophets by other models concerning the relationship between Yahweh and foreign monarchs. Thus one ﬁnds in Ezekiel and Jeremiah a depiction of Nebuchadnezzar as the servant of Yahweh, and in Second Isaiah a representation of Cyrus as Yahweh’s anointed, not to mention the positive role given to the Persian monarchy in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The court stories in Daniel 1–6 owe much to this tradition concerning Yahweh’s business with the foreign rulers. But this tradition does not, properly speaking, have a “world historical” perspective. Such a perspective is, however, supplied by the four kingdoms schema employed in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2. As is now well known, this schema appears to originate in a Persian historiographical tradition, which understood the Persians as heirs to a succession of empire that passed from the Assyrians to the Medes and then to the Persians. The schema shows up in later Roman historiography with the Greeks and Romans added to the sequence. But it also developed in a diﬀerent way as oppositional literature, in which the accession to power of the ﬁfth kingdom is not a description of present reality but a prediction concerning the immanent future, which will transform reality.19 Although it is often speculated that examples of this oppositional schema existed in Persian and Babylonian versions, these are not attested, and the earliest extant version is Daniel 2. The four kingdoms schema in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream raises several issues from the perspective of historical cognition. How, for instance, does a descriptive Persian historiographical schema become transformed into a predictive oppositional device? In the Persian version, and even in some of its later uses in Rome, the schema hardly even warrants the designation “historiogaphical.” It is more of a chronicle: ﬁrst this empire rules, then that one, then another one, and so forth. It lacks what Ricoeur calls “conﬁguration.” It lacks a plot. What Daniel 2 (or its precursor) manages to do is to emplot the schema and 19

The classic account is that of J.W. Swain, “The Theory of the Four Monarchies Opposition History under the Roman Empire,” Classical Philology 35 (1940), pp. 1–21. See also David Flusser, “The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), pp. 146–175.

rhyme and reason

227

so make it into a real story about sovereignty. Where does the plot come from? In Daniel 2 the schema is not presented ﬁrst of all as straight historical narration but as a symbolic dream. The use of symbolic ﬁgures becomes increasingly important in the historical résumés of apocalyptic literature. In some cases they may be trivial and not cognitively signiﬁcant; but that is not the case here. Here the symbols show precisely how the mind works to make new cognitions. Cognitive scientists describe the activity of thought as operating by “blends” in which different image schemas or story lines are brought into a common mental space, where aspects of the various “input” images or plots are used to organize perception of the “target” domain.20 This process is easier to illustrate than to describe in abstract language. The Persian account is organized simply as a continuity schema: kingdom a, kingdom b, kingdom c, and so forth. To turn it into opposition literature one needs to blend the continuity schema with a discontinuity schema. In Daniel 2 several intersecting ﬁgures and images serve this purpose. The simplest is the numerical ﬁgure. The number four is a widespread ﬁgure for completion. The cognitive theorists would trace this back to our very physical embodiment, as we organize space in relation to our bodies, which have a front, a back, and two sides. We then project this schema of completeness onto time and events. Thus to organize thinking about kingdoms into a sequence of four suggests completion. After that, whatever happens is discontinuous. Note that Daniel never refers to the eternal kingdom as the ﬁfth kingdom. It is not a part of the sequence as such. The sequence of the metals–gold, silver, bronze, iron–ﬁgures decline, and such a ﬁgure is used by Hesiod to represent decline and renewal of world ages (Works and Days, 106–201). Here, however, that potential signiﬁcance is not developed. Indeed the fourth kingdom appears to be militarily the strongest. More signiﬁcant is the description of the fourth metal as not simply iron but iron mixed with pottery. Klaus Koch is correct, in my opinion, in seeing this detail as something that the author of Daniel inherits from his sources rather than creates,21 but Daniel certainly makes good use of it. The primary discontinuity image in Daniel 2 is the contrast between the statue, which contains all of See, e.g., Turner, The Literary Mind, pp. 16–25; Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 16–19. 21 Klaus Koch, Daniel, BKAT 22 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1986-), pp. 137–138, 202. 20

228

carol a. newsom

the metals, and the rock. These are multivalent images. But in diaspora culture the statue of various metals certainly evokes the idol polemics (and so ﬁgures the gentiles), whereas the rock probably alludes to the passage in Second Isaiah that urges the exiles to “look to the rock from which you were hewn” (Isa 51:1). The images and the thought process at this point are quite similar to what one ﬁnds in political cartoons.22 Two images are placed in a frame, and their interaction models the political situation. If one “puts on stage” a rock and a statue, what might happen next? The plot suggests itself at once. The rock can be thrown at the statue, and if the bottom of the statue consists of iron and clay–a ﬁgure of simultaneous strength and fragility–then that is just the place at which it will break, bringing the whole down. Thus the rock both displaces and replaces the statue and becomes the symbol of a new sovereignty (continuity) but of a diﬀerent sort of sovereignty (discontinuity). The mind, of course, blends these images intuitively and virtually unconsciously. What the cognitive scientists demonstrate is that even seemingly obvious images and dead metaphors are in fact powerful instruments for cognition. Here in Daniel 2 they facilitate the appropriation and transformation of an alien historiographical schema into a new way of understanding Israel’s own world historical signiﬁcance. The other signiﬁcant issue raised by the historical résumé in Daniel 2 concerns the relation of past and future and the power of historical recital to unite them. Daniel 2 represents the earliest example of a Jewish historical résumé that functions to predict the future. As is well known, historical résumés in apocalyptic literature make extensive use of vaticinia ex eventu. The seer is ﬁctively placed at a time before the events in question and is given revelatory knowledge about the future by a dream, a vision, or other means. Although I do not wish to dismiss as irrelevant this ﬁctive setting as part of the text’s claim to authority, I am more interested in what the author of the apocalypse is actually doing. Whether self-consciously or simply intuitively, the author of the apocalypse is in fact scrutinizing history for patterns that he can demonstrate as having been operative in the past and by means of which he can predict the future. He does not so much seek the revelation of history as revelation by means of history.23 22 See the analysis of political cartoons as blends in Turner, Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science, pp. 120–126. 23 Carol Newsom, “The Past as Revelation: History in Apocalyptic Literature,” Quarterly Review 4 (1984), pp. 40–53.

rhyme and reason

229

While the accuracy of apocalyptic predictions is not impressive, they were not wrong to attempt to use history for cognition of the future. It is one of the primary purposes for which one engages in historical understanding. In an article entitled “The Unknown Future and the Art of Prognosis,” historian Reinhart Koselleck cites Kant’s dictum that “recalling the past … occurs only with the intention of making it possible to foresee the future.”24 Koselleck himself explicates the conditions as follows. “History does not just run in a unique, diachronic succession but always already contains repetitions … in which unique changes and the recurrence of the same or similar (or at least comparable) phenomena occur together … Ideas about the future rest upon a structural repeatability derived from the past.”25 Or, as I would put it, what the apocalyptic writers perceived was that the rhyme of history facilitates reasoning about the future. Their use of the historical résumé was not a sharp departure from earlier uses, however. The pre-apocalyptic résumés of the Hebrew Bible also project likely futures, though their sense of history as formed by the interacting agencies of Israel and Yahweh prevented them from moving into actual prediction. Yet already with Ezekiel, who locates the engine of history in the concern of Yahweh for his holy name, the historical résumé in Ezekiel 20 moves smoothly from historical retrospection into a prophetic oracle predicting the coming fate of Israel. The examination of history for the presence of patterns capable of predicting the future, however, occurs in striking fashion in the apocalyptic portion of Daniel, with chapters 8 and 11 containing the most subtle and perceptive examples. Here the author develops what can best be called an insight into the ironic structure of human political power. In each chapter the focus narrows and the detail increases. Chapter 8 traces history from the rise of the Medio-Persian kingdom to the time of Antiochus, under the ﬁgure of a ram, a he-goat, and their horns. The rhythm of history is clear. As each protagonist appears to reach the pinnacle of its power, it is destroyed. The very height of the power of the Persian ram attracts the aggression of the Greek hegoat (vv. 5–7). When the he-goat’s conspicuous horn (Alexander) is at the peak of its power, it is mysteriously broken (v. 8a). And so, when the little horn grows as high as the host of heaven and casts some of the

24 25

Koselleck, p. 133. Koselleck, pp. 136–137.

230

carol a. newsom

stars to the ground, one can be conﬁdent that it “will be broken, not by [human] hands” (v. 25b). The most ambitious attempt to discern the rhyme and reason of history, however, is the immensely detailed resume of Ptolemaic and Seleucid history in chapter 11. It is likely that the author actually made use of a Greek source for the construction of the account.26 What is impressive, however, is that without ﬂinching from the messiness of history the author seeks to discern not only the unique details of history but their embeddedness in what Koselleck calls “structural repeatability.” Because it takes so seriously the detail of historical reality and focuses on a comparably limited period of history, the account in Daniel 11 is much less schematized than other historical résumés, much less regularly rhythmic; but it is far from a mere chronicle. The author narrates the events so that they display a repetitious pattern, a pattern that discloses something like an inner rule that governs the historical process and that provides the basis for projecting the future. The ﬁgure that governs this history is, as Richard Cliﬀord described it almost thirty years ago, that of containment.”27 What the author depicts is not precisely a “balance of power” between the King of the North and the King of the South, for the King of the North is more frequently described as the aggressor, and it is sometimes Rome rather than the King of the South who turns him back and contains him. But as Cliﬀord describes it, the author focuses “not so much on the evil of the [Seleucid and Ptolemaic predecessors of Antiochus IV] but on their persistent inability to eﬀect a permanent rule by reason of their containment of each other.”28 So long as the King of the North cannot successfully sweep away the King of the South, so long as he cannot capture and hold Egypt, history remains in balance. One can see the force of the pattern on the author’s imagination most clearly in certain places where he gives the historical facts a bit of a nudge. In vv. 9 and 10, for example, campaigns of Seleucus II and Antiochus III are described in ways that suggest they were attempts to invade Egypt itself, 26 Lester L. Grabbe, “A Dan(iel) for All Seasons: for Whom Was Daniel Important?”, p. 234, in John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint, (eds.), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Somewhat more cautiously, Uriel Rappaport, “Apocalyptic Vision and Preservation of Historical Memory,” JSJ 33 (1992), pp. 222– 223. 27 Richard Cliﬀord, “History and Myth in Daniel 10–12,” BASOR 220 (1975), pp. 23– 26. 28 Cliﬀord, p. 24.

rhyme and reason

231

when they were not.29 History will break free of its moorings only when the King of the North does two things: when he sweeps away Egypt and when he challenges a heavenly rather than an earthly kingdom. Thus Antiochus IV’s two invasions of Egypt (vv. 26 and 29) and his rage against the holy covenant (vv. 30b–39) presage the breaking of the containment. In the prediction, which begins in v. 40, an attack by the King of the South precipitates an invasion by the King of the North that “sweeps through like a ﬂood.” And this time “not even the land of Egypt will escape.” This, in turn, allows the author to predict Antiochus IV’s death and the end of history itself. Even though the future did not turn out as predicted, the analysis of Daniel 11 remains an impressive attempt to discern within history the patterns that organize the dynamics of power and its “structural repetitions.” Space does not permit an examination of the historical résumé in the extracanonical literature of the Second Temple period, where it has its greatest ﬂourishing, primarily in apocalypses. Although the scope and sophistication of these works is often impressive (as in the great Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch), many of the techniques of composition are the same as those developed in earlier résumés. Yet there are also innovations and new directions. Perhaps the most striking is the attempt to coordinate structures of epochal, historical time with signiﬁcant patterns of calendrical time through the use of sabbatical and jubilee patterns.30 But one also notes a shift in the scope of history, which tends to become truly universal, extending from creation to eschaton and attending more speciﬁcally to the place of Gentiles (e.g., in the Animal Apocalypse in 1 Enoch and the Cloud Vision in Syriac Baruch). The subject of history similarly shows certain changes, especially in the Enochic tradition. Although the events alluded to are those familiar from the Bible, the subject of history becomes somewhat more abstract. In particular in the Apocalypse of Weeks, Klaus Koch has remarked that the protagonists are actually the abstract qualities of quˇs.ta" (righteousness) and sˇiqra" (deceit). So striking is this shift that Koch dubs the author of the Apocalypse of Weeks “the Hegel of antiquity.”31 And, similarly, in the Animal Apocalypse, though Israel is not displaced from John J. Collins, Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 378–379. Klaus Koch, “Sabbatstruktur der Geschichte,” ZAW 95 (1983), pp. 403–431; Devorah Dimant, “The Seventy Weeks Chronology (Dan 9,24–27) in the Light of New Qumranic Texts,” in: A.S. van der Woude (ed.) The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings, BETL 106 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), pp. 57–76. 31 Koch, “Sabbatstruktur,” 422. 29 30

232

carol a. newsom

its preeminent place, it is the “plant of righteousness” that is the true subject of history, a subtle reconﬁguration that aﬀects the way both primeval history and eschatological events are conﬁgured. But perhaps the most signiﬁcant issue raised by the noncanonical historical résumés is when and why they cease to be written. This issue brings one back to the reﬂections of Paul Ricoeur on time, narrative, and history. Ricoeur calls historical narratives “allegories of temporality.” The impetus to construct historical narratives is the attempt to endow human existence with meaning in the face of “the corrosive power of time.”32 Thus for Ricoeur historical existence is necessarily tragic in structure. And the writing of history is an act very much like that of the tragic poets, who endeavor through emplotment, through mythos, to resist those situations in which “meaninglessness threatens the meaningful,” in which conﬁgured time triumphs over merely chronological time.33 Indeed, for Ricoeur narrative is the only mode adequate to the tragic structure of temporality. For the most part the historical résumés of Israelite literature comport well with Ricoeur’s observations on the function of historical narrative. But in the apocalyptic résumés the attempt is made to use the resources of conﬁguration to ﬁgure the end of time itself, the end of history, and thus the end of tragedy. The last historical résumés–in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch–are written in the aftermath of the failed revolt against Rome. After the devastating Bar Kochba revolt, however, they cease to be written altogether. If that were all, it might simply be a case of one form of historical cognition overreaching and thus discrediting itself. But the context suggests something more radical. It is not just the historical résumé but the entire enterprise of constructing meaning through narrative history that is rejected by Judaism in the wake of the Bar Kochba revolt. From that time and for many, many centuries Judaism turns its back on the resources of history to resist “the corrosive power of time” and instead turns to ahistorical, and one might even say, atemporal forms of thought in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Rabbinic hermeneutics of the various midrashim. Through that act the claim is implicitly made that at least in certain situations tragedy overwhelms even the resources of historical narrative and that other means

32 White, “The Metaphysics of Narrativity: Time and Symbol in Ricoeur’s Philosophy of History,” The Content of the Form, p. 181. 33 Ricoeur, vol. 1, p. 44.

rhyme and reason

233

of cognition not only serve better but perhaps even eﬀect a means of redemption from history. As I have attempted to show, the study of the Israelite and early Jewish historical résumés oﬀers a rich arena in which to explore forms of historical cognition that are not only the historical antecedents of western historiography but that are in large part similar to patterns of historical thinking that continue to be employed. Perhaps even more signiﬁcantly, they oﬀer perspectives from which to examine and critique assumptions in our own historiographical practice and to illumine the limits of the enterprise of historical cognition itself.

ANCIENS ET MODERNES FACE AU CANTIQUE DES CANTIQUES UN IMPOSSIBLE DIALOGUE ?

Jean-Marie Auwers Les Pères de l’Église ont-ils encore quelque chose à dire à l’exégète d’aujourd’hui ? Telle est la question que l’on voudrait poser à partir du Cantique des cantiques. Celui-ci représente un cas particulièrement intéressant, dans la mesure où les exégètes modernes, dans leur grande majorité, s’inscrivent en faux contre l’exégèse allégorique qui a été la règle durant toute l’époque patristique et bien au-delà. Avant d’entrer dans le vif du sujet, il peut s’avérer utile de rappeler comment se pose aujourd’hui le problème de l’interprétation du poème.1

I. Bref état de la question Il s’est encore trouvé au 20e s. quelques exégètes pour argumenter en faveur d’une lecture allégorique. Pour des auteurs comme Paul Joüon, André Robert et André Feuillet, le Cantique est une sorte de midrash dont les images doivent être décodées à partir des textes prophétiques où l’Alliance entre Dieu et son peuple est évoquée à travers l’allégorie des amours, tantôt heureuses, tantôt déçues, d’un homme et d’une femme (Os. 2:16–17 ; Jér. 2:2; Ez. 16 ; 23 ; Is. 5:1 ; etc.).2 Contre cette lecture, on a objecté que, dans les parallèles invoqués, l’intention métaphorique est toujours clairement signiﬁée par le contexte, et la hiérarchie entre les partenaires toujours respectée, ce qui n’est pas le cas dans le Cantique, où la relation entre l’homme et la femme présente un caractère symétrique nettement accusé. De plus, dans les Bibles juives 1 Pour une histoire de l’interprétation détaillée, on consultera M.H. Pope, Song of Songs, AB 7C (New York, 1977), pp. 89–229 à compléter (pour les théories des vingtcinq dernières années) par exemple avec T. Longman III, Song of Songs, NICOT (Grand Rapids—Cambridge, 2001), pp. 44–47. 2 P. Joüon, Le Cantique des cantiques (Paris, 1909) ; A. Feuillet, Le Cantique des cantiques, Lectio Divina 10 (Paris, 1953) ; A. Robert—R. Tournay—A. Feuillet, Le Cantique des cantiques, EB (Paris, 1963).

236

jean-marie auwers

et chrétiennes, le livre est inscrit dans une conﬁguration sapientielle, ce qui invite à rechercher des parallèles littéraires dans les écrits de sagesse plutôt que dans le corpus prophétique. Si on excepte Marvin Pope et Luis Stadelmann, qui ont proposé respectivement une interprétation cultuelle et une interprétation politique du Cantique,3 la grande majorité des interprètes lisent aujourd’hui le poème dans son sens anthropologique. Dans quelques cas, cela aboutit à déconnecter purement et simplement le poème de son contexte biblique, la comparaison avec la littérature égyptienne antique étant jugée plus pertinente. Ainsi, pour Matty Cohen, le Cantique n’est rien d’autre qu’« un pot pourri de bribes de chants d’amour populaires agencés pêle-mêle au hasard de la compilation ».4 Mais un nombre croissant d’interprètes argumentent en faveur d’une portée théologique du sens littéral. Certains voient dans le Cantique un message sur la sexualité humaine, qui nous est ici décrite comme ayant sa ﬁn en ellemême dans l’œuvre bonne de Dieu. Dans cette perspective, si le nom divin est absent de la lettre du Cantique—mise à part une mention abrégée et peut-être rhétorique en 8:6–, c’est précisément parce que le livre veut enseigner que l’amour entre un homme et une femme est du ressort de la liberté humaine, Dieu l’ayant voulu ainsi. Le message théologique du Cantique serait de dire, paradoxalement, que l’eros est une réalité—non pas profanée—mais profane.5 Depuis quelques années, le récit de l’Éden (Gn. 2–3) est fréquemment évoqué comme intertexte. Ce rapprochement, déjà proposé par Karl Barth,6 fait du Cantique le prolongement de la jubilation initiale de l’homme mis en présence de la femme : «Pour le coup, celle-ci est l’os de mes os et la chair de ma chair. Elle sera appelée femme, car de l’homme elle a été tirée » (Gn. 2:23). Le Cantique déploierait largement ce cri admiratif, sur le même mode d’expression poétique qui est déjà celui d’Adam accueillant sa compagne.7 3 M.H. Pope, op. cit., pp. 210–229 (met le Cantique en relation avec le marzeah, dont il fait une «institution » proche-orientale) ; L. Stadelmann, Love and Politics. A New Commentary on the Song of Songs (New York—Mahwah, 1992) (pour cet auteur, le Cantique évoque de manière voilée la situation de Juda sous la domination perse ; la bien-aimée symbolise la population judéenne, et Salomon la monarchie davidique). 4 M. Cohen, « Métaphores et autres ﬁgures littéraires dans le Cantique des Cantiques », Graphè 8 (1999), pp. 11–31 (p. 30). 5 Cf. D. Lys, Le plus beau chant de la création. Commentaire du Cantique des cantiques, Lectio Divina 51 (Paris, 1968). 6 K. Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, III/1 (Zurich, 1947), p. 358. 7 Cf. F. Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise. Identity and Diﬀerence in the Song of Songs (Sheﬃeld,

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

237

Certains auteurs voient plutôt dans le Cantique un prolongement contrasté de Genèse 2–3: pour Phyllis Trible, si le couple de l’Éden perd son identité et son égalité par désobéissance (cf. Gn. 3:16), celui du Cantique les aﬃrme lorsque « le désir de l’homme devient le plaisir de la femme »—le paradis perdu étant alors retrouvé.8 Pour André LaCocque, le Cantique est la célébration d’un « amour libre, non apprivoisé »,9 à la diﬀérence de la Genèse et de l’éthique des prophètes en matière conjugale : «la nudité est ici transcendée par un enchantement devant la diﬀérence.»10 De son côté, André Wénin fait remarquer que les premiers mots de l’homme en Gn. 2 sont une parole à sens unique : Adam n’interpelle pas sa compagne, qui ne lui répond rien. Il se parle et fait de la femme l’objet de son discours. À l’inverse, le dialogue se déploie tout au long du Cantique, qui fait une large place à l’émerveillement mutuel devant la diﬀérence de l’autre.11 Comme on le voit, le rapprochement avec le récit de l’Éden, tout en maintenant l’ancrage du Cantique dans son contexte canonique, suggère une tout autre lecture que l’interprétation traditionnelle en clef prophétique. Cette lecture n’en est pas moins profondément biblique. Nous sommes davantage conscients aujourd’hui qu’une lecture théologique du livre est possible en-dehors de l’allégorie et qu’anthropologie et théologie ne s’excluent pas.12 Objectera-t-on que le sens théologique dégagé à l’heure actuelle n’est pas celui qui a permis l’introduction du Cantique dans le canon ? Il est un fait qu’au sein de la tradition juive comme au sein de la tradition chrétienne, la conception du poème comme dialogue amoureux est attestée bien plus tard que sa lecture allégorique. Toutefois, les commentateurs récents rappellent que nous ne savons pas pour quelles rai-

1983), pp. 183–265 ; G. Ravasi, Cantico dei cantici (Bologne, 1982), pp. 210–214; G. Barbiero, Cantico dei Cantici, I Libri Biblici (Milan, 2004), pp. 438–441. 8 P. Trible, «Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation », JAAR 41 (1973), pp. 30– 48 (p. 47) ; cf. ead., «Love’s Lyric Redeemed », in: A. Brenner (éd.), A Feminist Companion to the Song of Songs (Sheﬃeld, 1993), pp. 100–120. 9 A. LaCocque, «La Sulamite », dans P. Ricœur—A. LaCocque, Penser la Bible (Paris, 1998), pp. 373–410 (p. 406). 10 Ibid., p. 387. 11 A. Wénin, « Interpréter ? Un exégète face au Cantique », in: J.-M. Auwers (éd.) Regards croisés sur le Cantique des cantiques (Bruxelles, 2005), pp. 59–75 (pp. 65–69). 12 Cf. Barbiero, op. cit., p. 420: «La dimensione teologica del Cantico corrisponde alla dimensione teologica dell’amore umano, che non è mai solo ﬁsico e solo naturale ma è, in se stesso, aperto alla transcendenza».

238

jean-marie auwers

sons le livre est entré dans le canon et que, si les rabbins l’ont interprété dans un sens allégorique dès avant l’académie de Yabné, ce mode de lecture pourrait bien n’être qu’un eﬀet secondaire de la canonisation du livre, plutôt que sa cause déterminante.13

II. Vétusté et actualité des Anciens Face aux travaux récents qui viennent d’être brièvement évoqués, les Pères de l’Église ont-ils encore quelque chose à dire sur l’identité du Cantique ? À lire bien des commentaires récents, il semblerait que non. Même lorsque l’exégèse ancienne y est exposée de manière détaillée, elle est surtout prise comme repoussoir, ou présentée comme l’âge obscurantiste de la lecture du livre, dont l’exégèse est enﬁn sortie.14 C’est un eﬀet pervers des rétrospectives de l’histoire de l’interprétation du Cantique de décourager les lecteurs de se reporter aux sources patristiques et rabbiniques elles-mêmes. Roland Murphy écrivait avec humour à propos de l’Introduction du commentaire de M. Pope : «One does learn a lot about Origen and Gregory, Bede and Bernard, but at too great a price; one is almost determined never again to read them.»15

Dans le meilleur des cas, on reconnaît aux Pères un apport à l’histoire de la spiritualité, mais non à l’établissement du sens du texte. L’exégèse patristique est ainsi récusée dans sa prétention à dire quelque chose de vrai sur l’identité du poème. « A mio avviso, écrit Gianni Barbiero dans son récent commentaire, la lettura allegorica, anche se venerabile, appartiene alla Wirkungsgeschichte del testo, non al testo stesso. Non la

13 En ce sens : T. Longman, op. cit., pp. 56–58; G. Barbiero, op. cit., pp. 17–19; J. Luzarraga, « El Cantar de los cantares en el Canon bíblico», Gregorianum 83 (2002), pp. 5–63. À vrai dire, la survivance, jusqu’au IIe s. de l’ère chrétienne, d’un usage profane du Cantique lors des réjouissances populaires juives, pourrait indiquer qu’avant son entrée dans le canon (par le biais de la lecture allégorique), le Cantique était un classique de la poésie hébraïque. Cf. D. Barthélemy, «Comment le Cantique des Cantiques est-il devenu canonique ?», in: A. Caquot—S. Légasse—M. Tardieu (éd.) Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Mathias Delcor, AOAT 215 (Neukirchen— Vluyn, 1985), pp. 13–22 (p. 22). 14 Cf. A.-M. Pelletier, Lectures du Cantique des Cantiques. De l’énigme du sens aux ﬁgures du lecteur, Analecta Biblica 121 (Rome, 1989), pp. 60–64. 15 R.E. Murphy, «Patristic and Medieval Exegesis—Help or Hindrance ?», CBQ 43 (1981), pp. 505–515 (p. 505).

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

239

tratterò perciò nel commento, ma in appendice a esso, studiando la storia dell’ interpretazione.»16 Il est vrai que l’exégèse patristique oﬀre son lot d’interprétations pour le moins étranges : dès Hippolyte, les deux seins de la bienaimée (1:12) deviennent l’Ancien et le Nouveau Testament entre lesquels repose le Verbe de Dieu;17 les renards ravageurs de vignes (2:15) deviennent les hérétiques dès Origène ;18 pour Philon de Carpasia, le sommeil (du bien-aimé ?) (5:2) évoque la mort du Christ en croix.19 De telles interprétations, qu’on pourrait multiplier sans peine, choquent tout lecteur un tant soit peu critique et ont abouti à jeter un discrédit général sur les commentaires patristiques. O. Keel déclare renoncer à une présentation même esquissée des « péripéties de l’exégèse typologique et allégorique », car, écrit-il, « aussi intéressantes qu’elles soient comme témoins de l’histoire de la piété et de théologie, elles n’ont en rien contribué à une meilleure compréhension du Cantique des cantiques. »20 C’est précisément la thèse contraire qu’on voudrait défendre ici. Le propos n’est pas d’essayer de réinscrire le Cantique dans le carré des certitudes de jadis. Il serait stérile de vouloir reproduire aujourd’hui l’exégèse des Pères : «Rien n’est plus vain que ces tentatives… Elles ont quelque chose de puéril et de lâche », écrivait déjà Henri de Lubac.21 Le propos est de montrer que les textes de la Tradition nous orientent vers un élément constitutif de l’identité du Cantique des cantiques, en même temps qu’ils nous donnent un recul suﬃsant pour mettre en cause notre méthodologie et ses préjugés. La confrontation avec l’exégèse ancienne, révolue sur le plan des méthodes, possède à la fois une fonction critique et une fonction d’inspiration exégétique. C’est ce que David Steinmetz indique de manière précise : «The principal value of precritical exegesis is that it is not modern exegesis ; it is alien, strange, sometimes even, from our perspective, comic and fantastical. Precisely because it is strange, it provides a constant stiG. Barbiero, op. cit., p. 50. Hippolyte, Sur le Cantique des Cantiques, 12,2, trad. latine de la version géorgienne par G. Garitte, CSCO 264 (Leuven, 1965), p. 35. 18 Origène, Commentaire sur le Cantique, IV, 3,8–10, éd. et trad. L. Brésard—H. Crouzel, t. 2, SC 376 (Paris, 1992), pp. 724–725. 19 Philon de Carpasia, Commentaire sur le Cantique, 125 (PG 40, col. 100B). 20 O. Keel, Le Cantique des Cantiques, Lectio divina, Commentaires 6 (Paris-Fribourg, 1997), p. 18. 21 H. de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l’Écriture, I/1, Théologie (Paris, 1959 = 1993), p. 19. 16 17

240

jean-marie auwers mulus to modern interpreters, oﬀering exegetical suggestions they would never think of themselves or ﬁnd in any recent book, forcing them again and again to a rereading and re-evaluation of the text. Interpreters who immerse themselves, however, not only in the text but in these alien approaches to the text may ﬁnd in time that they have learned to see, with eyes not their own, sights they could scarcely have imagined and to hear, with ears not their own, voices too soft for their own ears to detect.»22

Avant d’en venir aux Pères eux-mêmes, on propose un détour par les traductions anciennes grecques et latines qui sont à la base de leurs commentaires.

III. La LXX, les anciennes versions latines et la Vulgate Il existe un consensus pour dater la Septante du Cantique du Ier s. de notre ère, quoi qu’il en soit du rattachement de la version grecque du Cantique au groupe καγε, proposé comme vraisemblable par Dominique Barthélemy.23 Or nous savons qu’à cette époque le Cantique faisait l’objet d’une lecture allégorique dans les milieux pharisiens, comme aussi vraisemblablement à Qumrân.24 Mais nous ne voyons pas que le traducteur grec ait cherché à favoriser une telle lecture : les quelques indices d’allégorisation qui ont pu être invoqués sont fragiles et pèsent peu de chose en face de la constatation impressionnante de l’apparente « neutralité » du traducteur.25 La parole que le jeune homme adresse à sa partenaire : «ta taille est semblable au palmier, et tes seins, à ses grappes ; j’ai dit : je monterai sur le palmier, j’en saisirai les parties hautes » (7:8–9) est aussi évocatrice en grec qu’en hébreu. Une phrase comme «mon bien-aimé a passé sa main par l’ouverture, 22 D. Steinmetz, « John Calvin on Isaiah 6», Interpretation 36 (1982), pp. 156–170 (citation p. 170), cité par R.E. Murphy, « History of Exegesis as Hermeneutical Tool : The Song of Songs », BTB 16 (1986), pp. 87–91 (p. 88). 23 D. Barthélemy, Les devanciers d’Aquila, SVT 10 (Leiden, 1963), p. 47. Pour la discussion, voir M. Harl, «La version LXX du Cantique des Cantiques et le groupe kaigeThéodotion. Quelques remarques lexicales », Textus 18 (1995), pp. 101–120; J.C. Treat, Lost Keys. Text and Interpretation of Old Greek Song of Songs and Its Earliest Manuscript Witness. (Diss. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1996), pp. 382–383. 24 Les textes sont rassemblés, d’après W. Bacher, par D. Barthélemy, «Comment le Cantique des Cantiques est-il devenu canonique ?». 25 Voir la discussion dans J.-M. Auwers, «Le traducteur grec a-t-il allégorisé ou érotisé le Cantique des Cantiques ?», à paraître dans XII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (Leiden, 2004).

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

241

et mon ventre en a frémi » (5:4) se prête à la même lecture érotique en grec qu’en hébreu. Il n’y a pas davantage de censure lors du passage du grec en latin dans les versions pré-hiéronymiennes. Il en va de même dans la Vulgate, où les indices d’allégorisation sont peu nombreux, ténus et toujours discutables.26 On peut évidemment faire valoir que la Septante du Cantique— comme la vetus latina et la version de Jérôme d’après l’hébreu—se veut la plus littérale possible et s’interdit, par méthode, de faire reﬂuer dans la traduction des éléments interprétatifs. Elle se tient au plus près du modèle qu’elle traduit. Cela dit, pour le choix du lexique, le traducteur grec disposait d’une certaine liberté, mais il ne semble guère avoir proﬁté de cette liberté pour imposer une lecture pieuse du Cantique. Ainsi, pour rendre l’hébreu "ahavah « amour », il pouvait choisir entre γ"πη et γ"πησις.27 Ailleurs dans la Septante, c’est ce second terme qui est utilisé pour parler de l’amour de Dieu pour son peuple,28 γ"πη étant réservé à l’expression du sentiment humain. Or c’est précisément le mot γ"πη que le traducteur du Cantique a choisi comme équivalent de "ahavah.29 Il a traduit l’hébreu gan « jardin » par κ3πος, et non par παρ"δεισος, ce qui aurait fait écho au jardin des origines.30 Dans le Cantique, le protagoniste masculin est désigné le plus souvent par le mot dôd, que le traducteur grec a rendu presque techniquement par un terme qui exprime un lien de parenté (δελφιδς, 34 x dans Ct.), alors qu’il aurait pu reprendre à son compte l’équivalence dôd = γαπητς qui apparaît en Is. 5:1, où il désigne Dieu. Bref, le traducteur grec n’a pas cherché à suggérer, dans la relation des deux ﬁancés, une image de l’amour de Dieu pour son peuple. Comment faut-il interpréter cette «neutralité » des traducteurs anciens ? Est-ce le signe que le poème avait pour eux une portée naturaliste et qu’ils voulaient permettre à leurs lecteurs de s’en tenir au sens immédiat ? Une telle interprétation est exclue pour Jérôme : nous savons, par les assez nombreuses citations qu’il fait du Cantique, en particulier dans ses lettres, que le moine de Bethléem voyait dans le

26 G. Barbiero, op. cit., p. 25 relève seulement la traduction Paciﬁcus (au lieu de «Salomon ») en Ct. 8,11–12. 27 J’exclus le substantif *ρως, qui est presque totalement absent du vocabulaire de la Septante (deux occurrences seulement: Pr. 7:18; 30:16). 28 Jér. 38 [= 31TM]:3 ; Os. 11:4; So. 3:17. 29 Ct. 2:4,5,7 ; 3:5,10; 5:8; 7,6; 8:4,6,7(bis). 30 Le mot παρ"δεισος apparaît en Ct. 4:13, mais pour traduire l’hébreu pardès.

242

jean-marie auwers

poème autre chose qu’un livret érotique.31 Cette même interprétation paraît peu probable pour le traducteur grec, au vu de ce que nous savons de l’exégèse du Cantique chez les rabbins de son époque. En fait, si les traducteurs anciens n’ont pas explicité la dimension religieuse du Cantique, c’est sans doute parce que cette dimension allait de soi pour eux. Les traducteurs anciens ont pu estimer que les signes de l’interprétation allégorique fournis par le texte hébreu étaient suﬃsants et que le texte était par lui-même allégorique, dès lors que le Cantique était replacé au sein des livres qui souillent les mains. Pour les Anciens, l’interprétation allégorique se lit dans le texte tel quel : pour eux, c’est le sens simple du texte qui est par lui-même allégorique. Les mots pris dans leur sens obvie—un jardin, des fruits, une vigne, de l’ombre, une femme et un homme qui s’aiment—sont par eux-mêmes évocateurs d’autres réalités, qui sont évoquées par les mêmes mots ou par des synonymes ailleurs dans la Bible, en particulier dans des contextes prophétiques. Le sens allégorique de l’amour de Dieu pour son peuple n’avait pas besoin d’être explicité.32 Je veux en venir à ceci : il nous paraît évident aujourd’hui que le sens obvie du Cantique est son sens anthropologique et que l’allégorie représente un coup de force interprétatif. Cela n’allait apparemment pas de soi pour les Anciens, à commencer par les auteurs des versions anciennes, qui lisaient directement le sens allégorique dans les symboles. Nous avons quitté les positions de lecture qui rendaient évidente l’exégèse allégorique. Il s’est donc produit ce que Paul Ricœur appelle une «mutation du lecteur»,33 mutation qui fait en sorte que nous voyons d’abord ou exclusivement de l’érotique derrière les mêmes mots où les Anciens voyaient aussi et surtout du mystique. Pour le dire en d’autres termes, si l’exégèse allégorique était conditionnée par des données culturelles aujourd’hui révolues, notre travail d’exégètes est lui aussi culturellement situé et les commentaires scientiﬁques contemporains sont eux-mêmes des fragments d’une histoire de la lecture qui se 31 F. Ohly, Hohelied Studien. Grundzüge einer Geschichte der Hoheliedauslegung des Abenlands bis um 1200 (Wiesbaden, 1958), pp. 48–50; A.-M. Pelletier, Lectures du Cantique des Cantiques, pp. 200–213. 32 Je développe cette idée (que je dois à Marguerite Harl) dans « Les Septante, lecteurs du Cantique des cantiques », Graphè 8 (1999), pp. 33–47 (pp. 44–47). 33 Cf. P. Ricœur, «La métaphore nuptiale », dans Penser la Bible, pp. 411–457 (p. 444). Voir aussi D.M. Carr, « The Song of Songs as a Microcosm of the Canonization and Decanonization Process », in: A. van der Kooij—K. van der Toorn (éd.) Canonization and Decanonization, Studies in the History of Religions 82 (Leiden, 1998), pp. 173–189.

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

243

poursuivra au-delà. Lorsqu’André LaCocque lit le Cantique comme un plaidoyer en faveur d’un amour libre, vécu en-dehors des liens matrimoniaux et des exigences sociales,34 fait-il autre chose que répercuter le discours public sur la sexualité ? L’herméneutique contemporaine, grâce en particulier à Hans-Georg Gadamer, nous a heureusement appris que c’était là une « loi » de la lecture et non une malédiction : je sais que d’autres liront après moi autrement que moi, comme je lis autrement que ceux qui m’ont précédé.35

IV. Conviction des Anciens et conviction des Modernes Si on peut avoir aujourd’hui l’impression que les Pères traversent le Cantique sans voir ce que ses mots veulent dire, on peut aussi se laisser interroger par la force de leur conviction : les Pères pensaient de toute bonne foi que l’allégorie faisait partie de l’écriture même du Cantique. Théodoret de Cyr († 466) a consacré de longues pages du Prologue de son Commentaire sur le Cantique à démontrer que le Cantique a été écrit comme une allégorie et qu’en conséquence il doit être lu allégoriquement.36 Partant du constat que le Cantique ﬁgure au nombre des écrits canoniques, Théodoret explique qu’en bonne méthode il faut rechercher les modes d’expression propres à la divine Écriture (τ3ς εας Γραφ3ς τ #δι:ματα), c.-à-d. les caractéristiques essentielles du style biblique, en vertu du principe herméneutique selon lequel l’Écriture doit s’interpréter à partir de l’Écriture. Théodoret n’a pas de peine à montrer que la métaphore est une ﬁgure courante dans la Bible ; il choisit ses exemples, il les choisit de manière privilégiée dans les textes de l’Ancien Testament qui retracent l’histoire d’Israël et de son Dieu à travers l’allégorie de relations conjugales contrariées par l’inﬁdélité de la femme. Or, note Théodoret, personne n’a jamais eu l’idée de lire ces textes autrement que comme une allégorie. Dès lors, qu’est-ce qui autoriserait à faire une exception pour le Cantique ? 34 A. LaCocque, Romance She wrote. A Hermeneutical Essay on Song of Songs (Harrisburg, 1998). 35 H.-G. Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke. I. Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen, 1990), p. 345. 36 Théodoret de Cyr, Commentaire du Cantique, Prologue (PG 81, col. 28–48). Pour le commentaire de ce texte, voir J.-N. Guinot, L’exégèse de Théodoret de Cyr, Théologie historique 100 (Paris, 1995), pp. 264–273.

244

jean-marie auwers «Le Dieu de l’univers, même dans l’Ancien Testament, s’adresse au peuple juif comme s’il s’agissait d’une femme et a employé des noms de membres du corps semblables à ceux que Salomon a employés quand il a écrit son livre concernant cette épouse. (…) Car là aussi nous trouvons : seins, nombril, membres, mains, narines, oreille, beauté, amour, embrassement, union, et tout cela dit par le Dieu de l’univers, et nous ne comprenons aucun de ces termes comme nous le lisons, et nous n’en restons pas à la lettre qui tue (cf. 2Co. 3, 6).»37

Théodoret dénonce la singularité d’une méthode qui ferait subir un traitement diﬀérent à des textes comparables ou supposés tels. La démonstration de Théodoret se veut scientiﬁque : de l’inscription du Cantique dans le canon il déduit son caractère métaphorique. Certes, Théodoret éprouve le besoin d’argumenter en faveur d’une lecture allégorique—ce qui montre que cette lecture n’allait pas de soi pour tout le monde ; de fait, Théodore de Mopsueste l’avait rejetée. Mais on ne voit pas que Théodoret lui-même ait le moindre doute sur la valeur de ses arguments. On retrouve la même bonne foi chez Gianni Barbiero, mais pour défendre la thèse opposée. L’exégète italien fait valoir que Ct. 8: 5b, tel que l’ont vocalisé les Massorètes, exclut la lecture allégorique : ^n!à ^"úì"a!ç änÖ ^é!zYUÇò çetzä úçz º^"úAìé äì"a!ç änÖ

«Sous le pommier, je t’ai réveillé, là où t’a enfanté ta mère.»

Les suﬃxes sont masculins. C’est donc la Bien-Aimée qui parle à cet endroit et, comme il n’y aurait pas de bon sens à parler de l’enfantement du Dieu d’Israël par sa mère, la lecture allégorique, qui identiﬁe le Bien-aimé avec Dieu, est rigoureusement impossible.38 Paul Joüon écrivait en 1909 : « Si l’on constatait dans le Cantique un seul trait irréel, mille traits réalistes ne prouveraient pas qu’il faut l’entendre au sens naturaliste.»39

Le raisonnement de Barbiero est du même type : tous les versets du Cantique à qui la méthode allégorique donne un sens satisfaisant pour l’esprit n’ont pas de poids face à Ct. 8: 5, qui, avec la vocalisation mas-

37 38 39

Théodoret de Cyr, Commentaire du Cantique, Prologue (PG 81, col. 33C ; 37A). G. Barbiero, op. cit., p. 50. P. Joüon, op. cit., p. 53.

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

245

sorétique, est inconciliable avec une lecture qui voit dans le personnage masculin du Cantique une ﬁgure du Dieu d’Israël. Ce n’est pas ici le lieu de discuter la valeur des arguments des uns et des autres. On se contentera d’observer que les partisans de l’exégèse allégorique, qu’ils soient Anciens ou Modernes, et les partisans de l’exégèse anthropologique se renvoient l’un à l’autre les «évidences » (supposées telles) qui fondent leur conviction—ce qui revient à rejeter systématiquement la charge de la preuve dans le camp opposé.40

V. Positions de l’exégèse patristique Parmi les nombreux traits qui diﬀérencient l’exégèse patristique de celle qui est pratiquée aujourd’hui, on retiendra ci-dessous les caractéristiques qui se permettent de pousser plus loin la réﬂexion herméneutique sur nos pratiques modernes.41 (1) Le trait le plus manifeste est sans doute que les Pères proposent une lecture allégorique du Cantique. Ici, il faut d’emblée dissiper un malentendu. Pour M. Pope, le but de cette lecture serait de « désexualiser » le texte biblique.42 O. Keel écrit dans le même sens : «L’intensité avec laquelle Origène, précisément, a encore senti le sens réaliste et littéral du Cantique, apparaît à travers son exhortation à ne laisser le lire qu’à des personnes insensibles aux séductions de l’amour

40 J.-P. Audet, «Le sens du Cantique des cantiques », RB 62 (1955), pp. 197–221 écrivait: «Supposé que le Cantique ne fasse pas partie du recueil des écrits inspirés, il ne viendrait à l’idée de personne de lui donner un autre sens que le sens obvie et naturel » (p. 199). De même, O. Keel commence son commentaire par cette phrase : «Celui qui rencontrerait le Cantique des cantiques ailleurs que dans la Bible n’hésiterait guère à y voir une collection de chants d’amour, ce qu’il est d’ailleurs originairement» (op. cit., p. 9). Théodoret n’envisage absolument pas une telle hypothèse. Au contraire, son point de départ est précisément le caractère canonique du livre, qui est un fait. On voit ici comment deux prémisses diﬀérentes aboutissent presque nécessairement à des résultats opposés. 41 Pour une présentation historique de l’exégèse patristique du Cantique, voir en particulier F. Ohly, op. cit. ; pour une présentation plus herméneutique, voir A.-M. Pelletier, Lectures du Cantique des cantiques, pp. 143–287 ; J.-M. Auwers, «Lectures patristiques du Cantique des cantiques », dans A.C.F.E.B., Les nouvelles voies de l’exégèse. En lisant le Cantique des cantiques, Lectio Divina, 190 (Paris, 2002), pp. 129–157. 42 M. Pope, op. cit., p. 114: « Celibate Christian theologians were able by allegory to unsex the Sublime Song and make it a hymn of spiritual and mystical love without carnal taint. »

246

jean-marie auwers physique; on pourrait autrement avoir l’impression que l’Écriture Sainte éveille de tels sentiments—une idée épouvantable!»43

En fait, comme le remarque à juste titre J.-E. de Ena, « ce qui est ‹ épouvantable › pour Origène, ce n’est pas les sentiments passionnels contenus dans le livre, avec leur connotation d’amour physique (…) mais l’idée que l’amour humain puisse constituer l’unique sens possible d’un texte qui, dans son optique croyante, est toujours et avant tout Parole de et sur Dieu.»44 L’allégorie ne vient nullement remplacer un sens jugé trop encombrant ; le sens obvie est le point de départ indispensable à partir duquel le lecteur peut s’élever vers un autre sens, jugé plus profond ou plus intérieur. Grégoire le Grand († 604) le déclare explicitement : «Dans ce livre intitulé Cantique des cantiques sont employés les termes d’un amour qui paraît charnel: c’est aﬁn que l’âme, sortant de son engourdissement, se réchauﬀe sous la friction de propos qui lui soient familiers et, grâce au langage de l’amour d’ici-bas, soit stimulée à l’amour d’en haut. (…) C’est à partir du langage de cet amour-là que nous apprenons avec quelle force nous devons brûler de l’amour divin.»45

Ces lignes montrent bien que la lecture allégorique n’implique nullement le rejet de la sensualité du texte ; elle indique seulement qu’il y a un sens au-delà du sens immédiat. Bref, si certains Modernes voient dans l’exégèse allégorique une censure de la valeur érotique du Cantique, il faut plutôt y voir le contraire, dans la mesure où la reconnaissance des implications sexuelles est indispensable à l’exégèse allégorique pour les spiritualiser. Il est vrai que le mot « allégorie » est piégé en ce qu’il peut donner à penser qu’il y a un thème réel, mais caché, et un thème apparent, mais trompeur. La citation de Grégoire qui vient d’être donnée montre que, pour lui, les deux thèmes sont dans le prolongement l’un de l’autre. Peut-être vaudrait-il mieux renoncer au mot « allégorie », qui ne ﬁgure d’ailleurs pas dans le commentaire d’Origène au Cantique46 43 O. Keel, op. cit., pp. 18–19. Le même auteur dénonce encore, à propos de l’exégèse allégorique, une prétendue «dévalorisation du corps et de ses besoins, voire les tentatives pour les qualiﬁer de démoniaques » (ibid., p. 19). 44 J.-E. de Ena, Sens et interprétations du Cantique des Cantiques. Sens textuel, sens directionnels et cadre du texte, Lectio Divina 194 (Paris, 2004), p. 139, n. 119. 45 Grégoire le Grand, Commentaire sur le Cantique des cantiques, 3, éd. et trad. R. Bélanger, SC 314 (Paris, 1984), p. 71. 46 Comme le rappelle J.-E. de Ena, op. cit., pp. 124–125.

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

247

et privilégier celui d’« analogie ».47 À la diﬀérence de l’allégorie, qui se suﬃt de deux termes, l’analogie en suppose quatre et établit une ressemblance de rapports : A est à B ce que C est à D. Or c’est bien le cas dans le Cantique : le rapport entre la bien-aimée et le bien-aimé du Cantique est présenté par les Pères comme analogue au rapport entre l’âme qui aime et Dieu. (2) Ensuite, l’exégèse patristique s’exprime à travers diﬀérents genres littéraires. À côté des commentaires techniques, à visée « scientiﬁque », les homélies tiennent une place non négligeable dans la production exégétique ancienne. L’enjeu, ici, n’est plus de décortiquer le texte ou d’en élucider les mots à l’aide d’explications textuelles, mais de permettre au lecteur de s’approprier les mots de la Bien-aimée. Origène le déclare explicitement au début de sa Première homélie : le lecteur idéal est celui qui « se hâte de répéter avec l’Épouse ce que dit l’Épouse, pour pouvoir entendre ce que l’Épouse elle-même a entendu».48 Pour accéder à « la chose » du texte, il faut refaire l’itinéraire que celui-ci propose et s’impliquer dans l’action dramatique. L’identiﬁcation du lecteur au personnage de l’Épouse est essentielle aux yeux d’Origène et des Pères en général : leur conception herméneutique « fait de la capacité du lecteur à s’impliquer dans le dialogue du poème la pierre de touche de sa compréhension ».49 À bien y réﬂéchir, il y a là une manière de se tenir au plus près du texte biblique, de respecter son mode d’énonciation, qui doit interroger l’exégète. Le Cantique se donne à lire comme un dialogue, il plonge son lecteur dans l’échange entre les bien-aimés ; lire, dans le cas du Cantique, c’est être attiré dans son jeu de paroles.50 Origène se prête aux règles que ﬁxe le texte. Les Modernes, eux (y compris les allégoristes modernes),51 se tiennent à distance du dialogue, dans la position de l’observateur désimpliqué. Cette disposition méthodologique permet aux approches modernes d’acquérir des savoirs précieux 47 Suivant la suggestion de F. Mies «Du lien entre le Cantique des cantiques et sa postérité», dans Regards croisés sur le Cantique des cantiques, pp. 151–173. 48 Origène, Homélies sur le cantique, I, 1, éd. et trad. O. Rousseau, SC 37bis (Paris, 19662), p. 71. 49 A.-M. Pelletier, Lectures du Cantique des cantiques, p. 262. 50 Le caractère «dialogique » a été mis en valeur par J.-P. Sonnet, «Le Cantique, entre érotique et mystique : sanctuaire de la parole échangée », NRT 119 (1997), pp. 481–502, qui a montré que c’était là une donnée première du poème. 51 Ce qui distingue les allégoristes anciens des allégoristes modernes est bien mis en évidence par P. Ricœur, op. cit., pp. 424 et 436.

248

jean-marie auwers

auxquels les Anciens n’avaient pas accès. Mon intention n’est pas de mettre en doute les acquis irremplaçables que livre l’exégèse critique. Il s’agit simplement d’observer que nos approches modernes ne correspondent pas à la manière la plus immédiate, la plus naturelle de se relier au Cantique. (3) Une autre caractéristique des commentateurs anciens est leur souci d’extraire du texte biblique un sens qui soit proﬁtable au lecteur. Le Prologue des Homélies sur le Cantique de Grégoire de Nysse est de ce point de vue tout à fait explicite : «Puisque certains chrétiens jugent bon de demeurer rivés constamment à la lettre de la sainte Écriture et n’admettent pas qu’elle ait dit quoi que ce soit par énigmes et sous-entendus en vue de notre utilité (0φλεια), j’estime nécessaire de répondre d’abord là-dessus, à ceux qui nous font des reproches en ce sens, que nous ne faisons rien d’inconvenant en nous appliquant à recueillir de toute manière, dans l’Écriture divinement inspirée, ce qui est utile (τ2 0φλιμον) : s’il arrive que la lettre, prise telle quelle, nous soit déjà de quelque utilité (0φελοη), nous avons d’entrée de jeu ce que nous cherchons ; en revanche, si une parole dite de façon voilée, par sous-entendus et énigmes, est dépourvue d’utilité (0φλεια) selon sa signiﬁcation obvie, nous retournons une telle parole, ainsi que l’Écriture nous l’enseigne par les Proverbes, de manière à l’entendre, soit comme une « parabole», soit comme une parole obscure, soit comme une maxime de sages, soit comme quelqu’une d’entre les énigmes (cf. Pr. 1, 6).»52

La notion de proﬁt ou d’utilité (0φλεια) pour le lecteur est ici hissée au rang de principe herméneutique, sur l’appui de 2Tm. 3: 16 auquel Grégoire fait allusion. C’est peut-être ce qui a permis au Cantique d’être perçu, à l’époque patristique, comme un texte qui nourrit la vie chrétienne et qui a sa place aussi bien dans la liturgie et la catéchèse que dans la théologie et la spiritualité. Il semble même que les Anciens ont eu besoin de ce livre si particulier pour exprimer quelque chose d’essentiel dans l’expérience chrétienne, quelque chose qu’ils n’auraient pu dire à partir d’aucun autre écrit biblique, Nouveau Testament compris. Sans lui, l’expérience mystique serait muette. Si la notion d’utilité est bien présente dans l’herméneutique moderne, elle est rarement assumée dans les commentaires récents, qui, pour-

52

Grégoire de Nysse, Homélies sur le Cantique, Prologue, éd. H. Langerbeck (Leiden, 1960), pp. 4–5. Cité d’après la traduction inédite d’A. Rousseau.

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

249

tant, sont eux aussi traversés d’«intérêts ». L’acte de lecture, même orienté critiquement, n’est nullement dégagé de toute implication subjective et existentielle. En voici un exemple. Les commentateurs discutent pour savoir si l’amour qui est célébré dans le Cantique est vécu dans les liens du mariage ou en-dehors.53 Cette question rejoint un débat de société actuel, et le lecteur a bien l’impression qu’en tranchant la question dans un sens ou dans l’autre les commentateurs s’engagent personnellement. C’est particulièrement clair chez André LaCocque, qui argumente en faveur d’une lecture résolument « subversive » du livre,54 mais aussi sous la plume de Tremper Longman, qui prend le parti inverse. Pour ce dernier, l’insertion du Cantique dans la Bible exclut d’y voir une célébration de l’amour libre ; bien plus, le Cantique mettrait même son lecteur en garde contre les dangers d’une sexualité débridée, qui ne serait pas vécue devant Dieu (c’est en ce sens que Longman interprète Ct. 8: 6). Une mise en garde contre l’amour libre : tel est le message que le Cantique adresserait à la société actuelle.55 Ce discours moralisateur de Longman est d’autant plus étonnant qu’il tranche par rapport à la ligne générale de l’interprétation qu’il défend. Étrange retournement ! Quoi qu’il en soit, la volonté de tirer du Cantique un message à adresser au lecteur est ici manifeste, ce qui est rarement le cas chez les Modernes. De ce point de vue, les Pères étaient davantage conscients de leurs motivations. En tout cas, ils étaient plus explicites. (4) Enﬁn, les Pères sont, à des degrés divers, sensibles à la pluralité de sens du texte biblique. Origène donne l’exemple d’un commentaire polysémique du Cantique, puisqu’après avoir établi le sens littéral, il développe le sens spirituel dans deux directions diﬀérentes, ou plus exactement complémentaires : celle d’une lecture ecclésiale (où le Cantique est entendu du Christ s’adressant à l’Église) et celle d’une lecture mystique (où il est lu comme un dialogue entre le Christ et le croyant). Il va parfois au-delà. Ainsi, il ne donne pas moins de dix interpréta53 Cette question a fait l’objet d’un débat mémorable entre H. Gollwitzer et Pinchas E. Lapide lors du Kirchentag de 1977 ; cf. H. Gollwitzer, Das hohe Lied der Liebe (Munich, 1978). 54 A. LaCocque, Romance, p. 8: « The entire Song strums the chord of ‹ free love ›, neither recognized nor institutionalized ». 55 T. Longman, op. cit., pp. 60–61. Dans le même sens : G.M. Schwab, The Song of Songs’ Cautionary Message Concerning Human Love, Studies in Biblical Literature 41 (New York, 2002).

250

jean-marie auwers

tions diﬀérentes des montagnes et des collines sur lesquelles bondit le Bien-aimé (Ct. 2: 8) !56 Ce foisonnement interprétatif ne gêne nullement l’Alexandrin, dans la mesure où il est perçu comme manifestant la richesse polysémique de l’Écriture. Certes, toutes les interprétations ne sont pas recevables pour Origène, mais, malgré tout, le propos est bien d’ouvrir le texte biblique pour lui permettre de déployer les virtualités de sens qu’il contient. Cette volonté d’épanouir le pluriel de l’interprétation est particulièrement frappant dans les chaînes exégétiques, qui apparaissent avec Procope de Gaza († 526) ou peu avant. Pour chaque verset du Cantique, la chaîne de Procope propose un nombre variable d’exégèses, pouvant aller jusqu’à neuf 57. Elle nous fournit ainsi un tableau contrasté de l’interprétation du livre.58 À la diﬀérences des rétrospectives oﬀertes par nos commentaires modernes, qui veulent surtout rendre sensible à l’éparpillement d’options interprétatives présentées comme incompatibles (et qui le sont en eﬀet souvent), le but des chaînes n’est en aucune manière d’opposer les exégèses, mais bien de déployer la richesse polysémique du texte. Les Modernes, de leur côté, s’eﬀorcent de défendre, de bout en bout, une ligne d’interprétation qui permettra de rendre compte de l’ensemble de l’ouvrage dans tous ses détails. Or il se pourrait bien qu’une lecture « ouverte », comme celle que pratiquaient les Pères, soit davantage conforme à la nature d’une texte hautement métaphorique comme le Cantique. En prenant appui sur les travaux récents menés dans la perspective de la poétique moderne, je rappellerai à présent les principales marques d’indétermination qui visent à démultiplier le sens du texte.59

56 Origène, Commentaire sur le Cantique, III, 11–12, éd. et trad. L. Brésard—H. Crouzel, t. 2, pp. 602–621. 57 Édition dans PG 87/2, col. 1545–1753, à compléter avec PG 17, col. 253–288 (pour les fragments d’Origène). 58 Cf. J.-M. Auwers, «Lectures patristiques du Cantique des cantiques », pp 140–147 ; id., «La transmission des commentaires sur le Cantique des Cantiques dans l’Épitomé de Procope de Gaza », in: Comunicazione e ricezione del documento cristiano in epoca tardoantica, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 90 (Rome, 2004), pp. 763–776. 59 Mes sources principales sont ici J.-P. Sonnet, «Le Cantique, entre érotique et mystique »; id., «Le Cantique : la fabrique poétique », in: Les nouvelles voies de l’exégèse, pp. 159–184; P. Ricœur, op. cit., pp. 415–417. Voir aussi A.-M. Pelletier, «Le Cantique des cantiques. Un texte et ses lectures », dans Les nouvelles voies de l’exégèse, pp. 75–101 (pp. 95–98) et F. Mies, op. cit, pp. 152–154.

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

251

VI. Le livre ouvert Le titre du livre, tout d’abord, n’impose aucune lecture en particulier. Si les commentateurs s’accordent généralement pour reconnaître dans l’expression sˇîr haˇssˇîrîm un superlatif, ils soulignent aussi la diversité des genres littéraires que recouvre le mot sˇîr dans la Bible. Quant à la référence à Salomon, elle est trop diversement interprétée pour orienter la lecture de manière ferme. Le titre du Cantique, en tout cas, n’indique pas le thème du poème. Nous n’avons pas ici l’Ars amatoria d’Ovide, clairement identiﬁé comme tel. La répartition des répliques entre les diﬀérents personnages est à plusieurs endroits indécidable. Placé devant le texte nu, le lecteur ne sait pas toujours qui parle. Les rubriques du genre « le bien-aimé / la bien aimée », qui, dans la plupart de nos traductions modernes, permettent d’identiﬁer les changements de locuteur, sont absentes du texte hébreu et de la plupart des manuscrits grecs.60 Qui dit : « Je vous en conjure, ﬁlles de Jérusalem,… ne réveillez pas l’amour avant son bon vouloir» (2:7) ? Est-ce elle ou lui? Qui dit : «Je suis descendu(e) dans mon jardin » (6:11) ? Est-ce elle ou lui ? Les commentateurs modernes s’emploient à combler ce qui leur apparaît comme une lacune du texte.61 Les Anciens, eux, tirent parti de l’indétermination ; les chaînes exégétiques, en particulier, documentent systématiquement les deux options, non pour inviter le lecteur à peser le poids des arguments qui soutiennent l’une et l’autre, mais pour montrer leur complémentarité.62 Certes, il faut bien que le verset soit dit par quelqu’un : c’est ce que nous rappellent les Modernes ; mais le fait est que le texte hébraïque n’a pas introduit de didascalies, et ce n’est peut-être pas sans raison. 60 De telles didascalies apparaissent dans l’Alexandrinus, le Sinaiticus et le Venetus. Du côté latin, les manuscrits bibliques comportent plusieurs séries de rubriques, dont une traduction des rubriques grecques du Sinaiticus. Cf. la section «Die Rubriken » dans l’Introduction d’E. Schulz-Flügel à son édition du Canticum Canticorum, Vetus Latina. Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel, 10/3 (Freiburg i. Br., à paraître). 61 En 2:7, c’est le garçon pour A. Robert et D. Lys ; c’est la femme pour O. Keel, G. Ravasi, G. Barbiero et T. Longman. En 6:11, c’est le garçon qui parle pour A. Robert, D. Lys, O. Keel, G. Ravasi, G. Barbiero et T. Longman ; c’est la femme pour R.J. Tournay, Quand Dieu parle aux hommes le langage de l’amour, CRB 21 (Paris, 19952), p. 68 (= p. 74 de l’éd. de 1982) et pour A. LaCocque, Romance She wrote, p. 136. 62 Pour Ct. 2:7, la chaîne de Procope cite Philon de Carpasia qui met le verset dans la bouche du bien-aimé, puis Grégoire de Nysse et Nil d’Ancyre qui le mettent sur les lèvres de la bien-aimée (PG 87/2, col. 1589–1593) ; pour Ct.6:11, la chaîne cite Origène et Nil d’Ancyre, qui attribuent le passage à la bien-aimée, et Philon, qui l’attribue au bien-aimé (PG 87/2, col. 1725).

252

jean-marie auwers

Du reste, le poème ne dévoile pas l’identité des personnages. Le personnage masculin, en particulier, qui est-il ? Est-ce un berger ? Un roi ? Un berger qui est roi dans les rêves de la bien-aimée ? Le bien-aimé et la bien-aimée ne sont pas des personnages clairement identiﬁables, et ce manque d’identiﬁcation des personnages permet—appelle peut-être même—des réidentiﬁcations de ces personnages. On peut hasarder ici un rapprochement avec le Psautier, où l’identité du priant n’est que rarement indiquée, précisément parce que les psaumes oﬀrent leurs mots à quiconque veut bien faire d’eux sa prière. À cela on peut ajouter un ﬂottement dans la sémantique de l’amour. Si le bien-aimé n’est pas le frère de celle qui l’aime (8,1), il est son dôd, un terme dont on a déjà signalé qu’il désignait une relation de parenté ;63 il est aussi son re#a (5: 16), c.-à-d. son prochain, son ami. Il appelle la bien-aimée non seulement kallah « ma ﬁancée », mais aussi ra#yatî, «mon amie » et "ah. otî « ma sœur ».64 Le vocabulaire dont usent les bien-aimés pour se désigner l’un l’autre n’oriente pas seulement vers la dimension érotique. Julia Kristeva ose même écrire : « ‹Ma soeur, ma ﬁancée› semble indiquer la virginité de l’aimée plutôt qu’une relation littéralement incestueuse, et on notera aussi, par rapport à cette virginité, qu’à aucun moment l’union charnelle n’est consommée.»65

Le propos est sans aucun doute excessif,66 mais il permet d’observer un rapprochement inattendu entre la psychanalyste et les Pères, qui tiennent eux aussi à la virginité de la bien-aimée. On peut à bon droit parler du Cantique comme du « jardin de la métaphore ».67 On le sait, le langage des amoureux du Cantique est métaphorique à l’excès. Le sens obvie—qui, de fait, renvoie à l’amour érotique—est constamment travaillé ici par une dimension métaphorique qui ouvre le texte. Celui-ci se dégage par là d’une signiﬁcation simplement référentielle, en l’occurrence sexuelle, pour permettre un désinvestissement hors de l’érotique en vue de «réinvestissements nou-

63 64

5:1,2.

Cf. J. Sanmartin-Ascaso, art. dôd, dans ThWAT II, col. 152–167. kallah : 4: 8,9,10,11,12 ; 5:1; ra #yatî : 1:9,15 ; 2:2,10,13 ; 4:1,7 ; 5:2 ; 6:4; "ah. otî : 4:9,10;

J. Kristeva, Histoires d’amour (Paris, 1983), p. 95. À l’autre extrême, O. Keel, op. cit., pp. 178–179 écrit: «La métaphore ‹ soeur › ne cherche en rien à exclure la sexualité ou l’érotisme ». Voir l’avis nuancé de G. Barbiero, op. cit., pp. 422–423 ; 429. 67 Cf. R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 185–203. 65 66

anciens et modernes face au cantique des cantiques

253

veaux dans d’autres régions de la relation amoureuse ».68 Alors que, dans Job par exemple, les images restent subordonnées au référent de départ, le Cantique « a en propre de brouiller les frontières et de faire basculer les choses dans le monde de la métaphore, en son propre champ de référence ».69 On peut diﬃcilement nier que les métaphores du ch. 7 associent étroitement la bien-aimée à la terre d’Israël : «Ton cou, telle une tour d’ivoire ; tes yeux, des vasques de Heshbôn, près de la porte de Bat-Rabbîm. Ton nez, comme la tour du Liban, qui guette du côté de Damas. Ta tête sur toi comme le Carmel ; les nattes de ta tête comme la pourpre ; un roi est pris à leurs tresses » (7: 5–6). Pour les commentateurs récents, il s’agit de simples comparaisons. Mais le lecteur peut se laisser prendre au jeu du texte. Il voit alors « la femme deven(ir) un paysage, celui de la terre d’Israël, et l’homme, son amant, deven(ir) le roi épousant en elle son royaume ».70 Il y a résolument prise ici pour une lecture allégorique. Les indéterminations qui viennent d’être relevées confèrent au Cantique une dimension d’énigme, qu’a bien vue Francis Landy.71 Par sa thématique et par sa référence à Salomon, le livre est bien en situation parmi les écrits de sagesse : le Cantique est « un mashal, une parabole poétique soumise à notre perspicacité ».72 Or parler d’énigme à propos du Cantique, ce n’est pas renoncer à en tirer un sens ; c’est aﬃrmer que les mots du poème débordent tout sens trop immobile. Si les commentateurs récents montrent sans peine que le texte résiste aux artiﬁces de l’allégorisme, la tradition patristique rappelle qu’il se rebiﬀe tout autant contre un écrasement sur l’érotique. Contre toute théorie qui veut refermer le poème sur son référent érotique, la lecture traditionnelle signale que le texte pointe vers un au-delà. En ce sens, elle nous dit quelque chose de l’identité du Cantique.

68 69 70 71 72

P. Ricœur, op. cit., p. 415. J.-P. Sonnet, «Le Cantique : la fabrique poétique », p. 173. J.-P. Sonnet, «Le Cantique, entre érotique et mystique », p. 494. F. Landy, op. cit. Cf. G. Barbiero, op. cit., pp. 421–427. J.-P. Sonnet, «Le Cantique, entre érotique et mystique », p. 486.

BIBLICAL EXEGESIS, COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND HYPERTEXT Christo H.J. van der Merwe 1. Introduction In the title of this presentation two disciplines and a technology appear to be equated. For this reason the title demands some explanation from the outset. Firstly, the research project behind this ambitious title is prompted by a perceived “crisis” in the ﬁeld of biblical exegesis (and in particular the exegesis of the Hebrew Bible). Secondly, it is inspired, in general, by some opportunism that is often associated with interdisciplinarity.1 More particularly, in the case of biblical exegesis, on the one hand, insights into the cognitive processes involved in analyzing and interpreting literary texts, as a particular mode of human communication, looked promising for addressing some issues in the ﬁeld of biblical exegesis. On the other hand, there have also been so many apparent parallels between many ideas in current literary theory and hypertext theory that Landow (1997) entitles one of his recent publications: Hypertext 2.0. The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. If one assumes, and I know this is precarious, that current literary theory represents at least some aspect of what happens in the process of the comprehension of literary texts, it implies that hypertext technology may have something to say for biblical exegesis. The aim of this paper is to establish whether recent developments in cognitive linguistics, and hypertext as a technology which is supposed to do many things book technology could not do, may indeed make a contribution to some problematic aspects of biblical exegesis. A focus of this study will be to critically assess the current “hype” about (and my own enthusiasm for)2 the possible practical value of cognitive Cf. Weingart (2000, p. 39) who states that “Interdisciplinarity may best be described as a result of opportunism in knowledge production”. 2 In Van der Merwe (2000 and 2002) I concentrated on the new horizons provided by hypertext technology. 1

256

christo h.j. van der merwe

approaches and hypertext technology for biblical exegesis.3 From this assessment I believe it will be evident that what is at stake here is more than just another jargon laden theory of language and/or a gimmick that can be left for computer junkies or Bible software companies to make money with. For the purpose of this presentation it will be important to spell out clearly what I regard as the crisis in current biblical exegesis, and those areas in which I believe cognitive linguistics and hypertext technology could make a contribution. This will be the topic of the ﬁrst section of the paper. In the second section I will deﬁne the notion “cognitive linguistics” and will discuss those aspects of this ﬁeld of study that are relevant for our purposes. In section three developments in the theory and practice of hypertext technology, in particular those that have potential to be of value for the areas in Biblical exegesis referred to above, will be scrutinized. Since issues in two disciplines and the theory and practice of a new technology are addressed in this investigation— and as a consequence many of the issues will be represented in very broad strokes—the conclusions of this investigation cannot be more than a few general observations. 2. A crisis in Biblical exegesis In terms of this presentation I view the crisis in biblical exegesis with a clear bias. This bias is already encapsulated in the hypothesis that cognitive linguistics and hypertext may help to address the crisis. However, it would be naive to assume that my presentation of this crisis is coloured only by the above-mentioned perspective on it. My own background as a Biblical Hebrew scholar, my academic setting, etc., also play a role. My perception of the crisis in Biblical exegesis agrees to a large extent with that of Utzschneider (1996). According to Utzschneider, the exegetical crisis has three foci:

Snyder (1999, p. 44) observes: “One interesting diﬀerence between the writings of literary and hypertext theorists, however, is tone. Most writings on theory … are models of scholarly solemnity; by contrast, writings on hypertext are often most celebratory”. 3

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

257

1. Loss of consensus and the avoidance of theory; 2. Inadequate alternatives and excess of theory; 3. Loss of acceptance. The ﬁrst focus centres on a lack of conﬁdence in the methods and results of historical critical models.4 Diﬀerent schools of thought exist alongside one another, each often “refurbishing old models” and producing new results, “yet the sheltering port of a general consensus, or anything approaching it, is still out of sight” (1996, p. 2). The second focus represents the other side of the scale. Scholars draw from non-theological ﬁelds of study, e.g. literary, textual and hermeneutical studies, but then fail to produce convincing results by means of these innovative frames of reference (Utzschneider 1996, p. 3). The third focus of the crisis concerns the loss of acceptance of the results of historical criticism by contextual exegetes, and the lack of interest of historical critical scholars in the reception of biblical texts by particular persons and groups. According to Utzschneider (1996, p. 3), “in all three focuses of the crisis, what is at stake is the ability or inability of OT exegesis to arrive at a critical self-awareness”. One of the most crucial issues which I believe displays a lack5 of “critical self-awareness” is the code model of communication6 underlying historical criticism in general.7 This communication model, among other things, assumes a “universal reader” who analyzes the text (i.e. the code) according to a set of rules. With these rules he/she will then be able to decode or identify the message of the code. This model of communication implies that the ﬁrst audience, as well as subsequent audiences, in the pre-literal and literal and redactional phrases, should have read the text in a similar way if they had wanted to understand the “message” of the code correctly.

Cf. also Hardmeier (2003, pp. xi, 7–12). A lack of “self-critical awareness”, however, cannot be laid at the door of a scholar like Erhard Blum (Jonker forthcoming). 6 Utzschneider (1996, p. 5) calls it the “transmitter-receiver” model. He states “from the perspective of this model it is completely plausible that a text should be primarily comprehensible because a speaker—i.e. the author—wishes to say something at a particular time in a particular context to a recipient—i.e. the listener or reader”. 7 Cf. Van der Merwe (2002, pp. 89–91). 4 5

258

christo h.j. van der merwe

Insights into what happens in human communication certainly contribute towards undermining the credibility of the above-mentioned types of biblical exegesis, e.g. it is generally agreed that communication involves more than the code of the interlocutors; it also includes their entire cognitive environments with all the scripts and frames attached to them (the so-called inferential model of communication), and furthermore, audiences/readers tend to assign meaning intuitively in terms of their own cognitive world (the so-called interactive model of communication.) It is therefore not surprising that abandoning the ideal of identifying the “correct message” of a text has its counterpart in the ﬁeld of literary studies. Attention has turned to “revealing” what happens in the process of reading and interpreting literal texts, instead of primarily “decoding” the meaning of the text. According to Talstra (2002, pp. 103–108) scholars reacted in the following two ways towards the loss of the credibility of the classical historical critical model: 1. A movement away from historical questions towards hermeneutical and literary scientiﬁc issues is advocated. John Barton (1996) is an exponent of this initiative. Barton does not deny the necessity of the historical critical analysis of texts, but calls for insight into its limitations. Finding the ultimate message of a text is not the primary aim of the competent reader he has in mind, but rather it is the attempt to gain an insight into the ways in which texts had been understood and how they can be understood today. According to Talstra, a feature of most approaches that concentrate on hermeneutical and literary scientiﬁc issues is an absence of reﬂection concerning the linguistic dimensions of text. 2. An integration of the historical and linguistic dimensions of the text. According to Talstra (2002, p. 107), these attempts towards more reﬁned theoretical frames of reference for the linguistic description of the Hebrew text represent a line of thought introduced by Fohrer-Hoﬀman and Richter. However, unlike these two scholars the frames of reference of Schweizer and Hardmeier are not primarily aimed at a better analysis of the historical dimensions of the text. Their primary aim is to describe the communicative functions of the texts. Talstra, unfortunately, does not comment on the scholarly status of either Schweizer (1981) or Hardmeier (1990). There is little doubt that

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

259

Schweizer’s ambitious attempt, among other things, overstretches the possibilities of structuralism for the understanding of ancient texts.8 Hardmeier’s approach appears to be more promising. According to Jonker (forthcoming), this “text-pragmatic method concentrates on a synchronic description of textual units in order to determine their communicative structures. The description of these structures assists in determining the (in)coherence of texts. For each coherent textual unit the possible function of intention within a presumed communication situation is postulated.” Hardmeier builds his model on the text theoretical model of Schmidt. He (Hardmeier 2003) claims that his applications of Schmidt and more recent work done by Lucius-Hoene and Depperman (2002) are witness to the empirical status of his model.9 When one considers developments in Cognitive Linguistics (see section 2), these claims for the “empirical status” of his model call for further scrutiny. Talstra (2002, p. 110) positions himself in line with the thoughts of Barton, Hardmeier and Jonker. He ﬁnds Hardmeier’s attempt to understand the communicative eﬀects of biblical texts by means of a systematic text linguistic analysis attractive. Barton’s and Jonker’s call for the development of reading strategies for competent readers Talstra believes warrant further experimenting with the view of exegesis as a conscious and well-documented report of a reading process. The reason is that what Barton and Jonker call for is not a new type of recipe, but a well-contemplated sensitization to all the variables that are involved when an ancient religious text like the Hebrew Bible is read. A ﬁrst implication of Talstra’s working deﬁnition of exegesis is the reality of an enormous amount of data that has to be taken into consideration. These data include the various textual traditions and receptions of these textual traditions through all ages. Therefore, it appears for him logical to concentrate on the process of reading and on the “instruments” needed for the analysis of texts. Crucial though for Talstra is the question: at what point of the reading process should which questions be put? (2002, p. 113). 8 Disse (1998, p. 32) remarks: “Die Gefahr seines Methodenkonzepts scheint mir in der Festschreibung von Terminologie und Fragestellungen zu liegen, die schematisch auf die Analyse von alttestamentlichen Texten angewandt werden, aber inzwischen schon gar nich mehr dem aktuellen linguistischen Forschungsstand entsprechend”. Cf. also Hardmeier (2003, pp. 16–17). 9 Disse (1998, p. 51) questions Hardmeier’s “functional” interpretation of some grammatical constructions.

260

christo h.j. van der merwe

In order to address this question, he argues (2002, pp. 113–114), one has to acknowledge an opposition between the general patterns or systems displayed in languages and the speciﬁc features of a language or a text. More recent approaches in linguistics and literary sciences focus on the former, while the classical exegetical approaches of the 19th century concentrated on the latter. He is of the opinion that this opposition can be handled by means of two basic assumptions: (1) analysis by means of relating to general patterns should precede analysis relating to the speciﬁc, and (2) linguistic analysis should precede the literary analysis. If one accepts these two assumptions, this leads to the following principled “ordering” of methods of text analysis and text interpretation: 1. Analysis of the language system precedes analysis of the text composition; 2. Analysis of the text composition precedes reconstruction of the text; 3. Reconstruction of the text precedes dialogue with the text; 4. Dialogue between reader and the text, i.e. how does the reader position his/her reaction to the text (e.g. in terms a religious tradition, a culture or an academic league)? In short: exegesis is for Talstra the documentation of processes of communication (reading) that involve a broad spectrum of data, which may include various texts, textual traditions, translations and readings/readers, each of which has a role to play. However, the most logical point of departure for him is the linguistic analysis of the textual tradition under consideration. As far as the Hebrew Bible is concerned, it would be the overall form of the transmitted text. This explains Talstra’s positive attitude towards Hardmeier. Although he does not make explicit mention of his work, Talstra would certainly have appreciation for the holistic diachronic exegesis of Blum.10 In the light of our discussion so far, one may argue that the abovementioned ﬁndings reﬂect some of the aspects and/or symptoms of the crisis in biblical exegesis. However, one immediately has to acknowledge that the most pertinent issues are being addressed, e.g. more insight and sensitivity for all the factors (and cognitive environments) that are involved in the processes of reading the Hebrew Bible; an appreciation of the role of its diachronic layers for the interpretation 10

Cf. Jonker (forthcoming).

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

261

of the ﬁnal form of the transmitted texts, and the formulation of some general principles in terms of which the massive amount of data can be approached. What remains of our crisis, in my opinion, is the lack of more detailed and well-justiﬁed instruments for the point of departure of the entire process, viz. the linguistic analysis of the texts of the Hebrew Bible. Talstra is certainly on the right track when he argues that we should ﬁrst determine the features of the Hebrew language system before we try to assign functional (e.g. communicative) values to particular constructions—a tendency that I detect in Hardmeier’s approach.11 However, in his own analysis of the texts, Talstra does not operate in terms of an explicit theoretical frame of reference. His point of departure is a graphical presentation of hierarchically (i.e. text linguistically) organized clause relationships of the Massoretic text compiled on the basis of computer-generated distributional patterns. The next step of his analysis, as exempliﬁed by his treatment of 1 Kgs 21, entails mainly a “pre-theoretical” description and interpretation of the lexical and morphological realization of participants, verbal patterns, word order, lexical repetitions, etc. How these constructions may be interpreted in terms of cognitive processing Talstra (2002) does not consider.12 It is in this regard that I hypothesize that developments of cognitive linguistics may make a contribution towards addressing unsolved issues concerning the crisis in biblical exegesis. I turn therefore to the next section of my presentation. 2. Perspectives from cognitive linguistics 2.1. Exegesis as text comprehension In an earlier investigation I proposed that Kintsch’s (1998) model for text comprehension from a cognitive psychological point of view may be a good point of departure if one wants to develop a sophisticated theoretical frame of reference for analyzing Biblical Hebrew texts.13 I found Kintsch’s model promising not only because it is a highly Cf. Disse (1998, p. 51). Talstra is not ignorant of the possible value of such an approach. Cf. Talstra and Van der Merwe (2002, pp. 43–78) and Van der Merwe and Talstra (2002/3, pp. 68–107). 13 Cf. van der Merwe (2002, pp. 87–102). 11 12

262

christo h.j. van der merwe

regarded theory of text comprehension,14 but also because it is based on years of empirical work. It is impossible to do full justice to Kintsch here. According to him (1998, pp. 4–5): Roughly, the story goes like this. We start with a comprehender who has speciﬁc goals, a given background of knowledge and experience, and a given perceptual situation. The perceptual situation may, for instance, be the printed words on a page of text. We mostly skip the question of how the reader forms basic idea units from these words … Given these idea units in the form of propositions as well as the reader’s goals, associated elements from the reader’s long-term memory (knowledge, experience) are retrieved to form an interrelated network together with the already existing perceptual elements. Because this retrieval is entirely a bottomup process, unguided by the larger discourse context, the nascent network will contain both relevant and irrelevant items. Spreading activation around this network until the pattern of activation stability works as a constraint-satisfaction process, selectively activating those elements that ﬁt together or are somehow related and deactivating the rest. Hence, the name of the theory, the construction-integration (CI) theory: A contextinsensitive construction process is followed by a constraint-satisfaction, or integration, process that yields if all goes well, an orderly mental structure out of initial chaos.

However, his “theory of comprehension” is a “psychological process theory. That is, it is concerned with the mental processes involved in acts of comprehension—not primarily with the analysis of the material that is to be comprehended. Applied to text comprehension, this means that it is not a theory of text structure, or a text analysis” (Kintsch 1998, p. 4).15 Nevertheless, if one considers Kintsch’s model, the following features of the processes that Kintsch describes are relevant for the purposes of this paper: – The sequential construction of the “text base” happens with the large-scale activation of referents, the activation of concepts asso14 Harker (1999), p. 79) remarks: “While the development of cognitve psychology in the latter half of this century has produced numerous models of text processing … the model that has emerged through the work of Teun van Dijk at the University of Amsterdam and Walter Kintsch at the University of Colorado … not only accommodate the major ﬁndings of cognitive psychologists who have explored text processing, but also continues to be highly inﬂuential in determining the kinds of questions psychologists ask and the kind of ﬁndings they report concerning this process”. 15 Kintsch’s model is founded on the processing of non-literary texts. Harker (1999, pp. 79–91) investigates the implications of Kintsch model for the comprehension of literary texts.

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

263

ciated with them, as well as the activation of mental processes such as scripts, frames and other inferential processes. – As the discourse unfolds, the manifold activated referents, meaning associations and expectations are constrained by the incoming input. – Simultaneously, and almost right from the start, inferences from the knowledge of the world and other retrieval structures also constrain the activated propositions and starts to integrate those into a “situation model” that makes sense. Discourse processing markers like connectives, spatio-temporal indicators, etc., all constrain the integration process as well.16 Signiﬁcant for me here is the notion that, on the one hand, the language of the text activates referents, as well as concepts associated with them, and scripts and frames on a large scale. On the other hand, new input, current knowledge, knowledge of the world and discourseprocessing markers in the text constrain and help to integrate the information in order to make sense of a text.17 Comprehending any text, therefore implies an enormous amount of information. This is the point where I believe developments in cognitive linguistics have a contribution to make towards the interpretation of Biblical Hebrew texts, and where hypertext technology too comes into play. One of the focal points of cognitive linguistics has been the semantic dimension of language, and in particular the “information” bases involved in the construal of meaning at the word, phrase and clause levels.18 2.2. Cognitive Linguistics At the outset I have to deﬁne what I understand Cognitive Linguistics to be. It will be evident that it is not a uniﬁed theory that can be directly applied to address our above-mentioned problem. It is rather a broad approach that is guided by similar basic assumptions (and goals). 16

This summary is derived from a formulation by Floor (2004). Cf. Costerman and Fayol (1997) for a number of empirical studies on the processing of intercausal relationships in texts, and its relevance for the comprehension of texts. 18 According to Taylor (2002, p. 35) “The focus of Cognitive Linguistics is to give substance to semantic representations, and to show how these are directly linked to formal aspects”. 17

264

christo h.j. van der merwe

I will argue that it is some of these assumptions, and of course some pioneering work done in the ﬁeld of Cognitive Linguistics, that may provide a broad theoretical frame of reference for research that may provide more adequate solutions to questions concerning the meanings conveyed in Biblical Hebrew texts at the level of words, phrases, clauses and texts. Apart from describing what I understand Cognitive Linguistics to be, I will brieﬂy consider some of the roots of this approach to the study of language. This will explain some of the basic assumptions of the approach, which I will use as the organizing principle of the next section of the presentation. After arguing then on the basis of two of these assumptions how this broad approach may serve to speciﬁc research projects in the ﬁeld of Biblical Hebrew, I will point to some controversial aspects of this new theory of language. Taylor (2002, p. 5) distinguishes between Cognitive Linguistics with capital letters and cognitive linguistics with small letters. For him the latter refers to “any linguistic theory which recognizes the fact that language knowledge resides in the mind, irrespective of whether the theory is committed to the view that language knowledge should be embedded in what is known independently about human cognition”. The best description of Cognitive Linguistics (i.e. with capital letters) I came across is one cited by Taylor (2002, p. 9),19 viz. [Cognitive Linguistics] subsumes a variety of concerns and broadly compatible theoretical approaches that have a common basic outlook; that language is an integral facet of cognition which reﬂects the interaction of social, cultural, psychological, communicative and functional considerations, and which can only be understood in the context of a realistic view of acquisition, cognitive development and mental processing … It seeks insofar as possible to explicate language structure in terms of the other facets of cognition on which it draws, as well as the communicative function it serves.

A basic point of departure of Cognitive Linguistics is therefore that language is part of human cognition. If we want to understand any linguistic phenomenon, e.g. what it means to know language, how language is acquired or how language is used, this has to be based 19 Cognitive Grammar, which is for Taylor (2002, p. 16) part of the Cognitive Linguistic enterprise, is founded on the assumption that language is symbolic in nature, i.e. linguistic expressions symbolize or stand for conceptualizations. In other words, language “is symbolic to the extent that language is essentially a means for relating semantic and phonological structures” (Taylor 2002, p. 23).

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

265

on what we know about human cognitive abilities. For this reason it is obvious that Cognitive Linguistics is drawing (or at least purports to draw) on ﬁndings in the ﬁelds of cognitive psychology, neurocognitive psychology, neurolinguistics and artiﬁcial intelligence.20 It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss these roots of Cognitive Linguistics in detail. What is important for the purposes of this paper is the model of the human mind that plays a pivotal role in this approach to the study of language and language use. Up to the 1960s the “standard model” of the mind has been described as the “stage model.” According to this model “mental processing takes place in a sequential series of stages” (Werth 1999, p. 26). More recently the human mind has been viewed as a neural network consisting of “connectionist networks”. According to Marmarido (2000, p. 48), Rather then viewing the brain as a system of modules linearly feeding information to each other and ultimately to central systems, connectionism views the brain as a network (i.e. sets of nodes with links between the nodes CHJvdM) characterized by causal processes by which units of intricate systems excite and inhibit each other and thus dynamically adapt to their environments.

Nodes can be activated along a scale of intensity and connections may vary in strength. Regular activation may lead to the strengthening of connections. If the strength of a connection crosses a particular threshold, it may represent what has been referred to as “long-term memory” in the stage model (Werth 1999, p. 29). According to this view of the mind, processes of neural co-activation (“ﬁred” by the input of experience) play a signiﬁcant role in human conceptual systems and modes of reason.21 Cognitive Linguistics is regarded by many scholars as a reaction to the dominant approaches to syntax and semantics in the third quarter of the 20th century, viz. generative grammar and truth-conditional semantics (Croft and Cruse 2004, p. 1). As far as Chomskyan linguistics is concerned, its extremely formal character, its focus on high-level generalizations, its restriction to “core” syntactic phenomena (and consequent lack of interest in the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of 20 Cf. Werth for an insightful overview of developments in cognitive psychology and artiﬁcial intelligence (1999, pp. 26–34). For the relationship between neurocognitive linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, cf. Taylor (2002, pp. 16–18). 21 For a more detailed discussion in this regards, cf. Van der Merwe (2003, pp. 22– 24).

266

christo h.j. van der merwe

language) and the perception that this approach does not accord with what we know of the human mind, were among the considerations that prompted scholars such as Lakoﬀ, Fillmore and Langacker, who were all trained as generative grammarians, to go in a diﬀerent direction. According to Lakoﬀ (1987, p. 583): The primary function of language is to convey meaning. A grammar should therefore show as directly as possible how parameters of form are linked to parameters of meaning.

Four major assumptions guide the Cognitive Linguistic approach:22 1. Language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty.23 This assumption implies that “the cognitive processes that govern language use, in particular the construction and communication of meaning by language, are in principle the same as other cognitive abilities” (Croft and Cruse 2004, p. 2). This, among other things, means that psychological models of memory may shed light on the way linguistic knowledge is organized. Such models (along with Gestalt psychology referred to in the next paragraph) inspired, for example, models concerning the ways in which diﬀerent types of information are organized around lexical items, e.g. the term çáæî would call up a frame, i.e. the setting of an altar, the oﬀering, the oﬃcials involved, as well as the script, i.e. the procedures involve at an altar.24 Describing only the features and/or functions of an altar, or as in the case of many BH dictionaries, providing mainly a translation equivalent of the term, would not convey to a modern reader the full “meaning” of the term that it had for an Israelite in premonarchical times. Moreover, one may argue that the frame and script of that of a pre-monarchical Israelite, such as Abraham, would have diﬀered from that of one living in the time of Solomon. In a similar way, even the frame and script of a person living in Israel in the time of Hosea would have diﬀered to a degree from one living in Judah in the time of Josiah. This example illustrates that such a perspective on lexical meaning calls into question the distinction between dictionary and Cf. Croft and Cruse (2004, p. 1), Taylor (2002, pp. 8–16) and Werth (1999, p. 35). Bates (forthcoming, p. 20) compares the evidence for and against the innateness of language as a separate human faculty. She concludes: “there is no evidence in this population for an innate, well-localized language faculty”. 24 Cf. de Blois (2000, pp. 4–8) for more detail on frame theory and its implications for Biblical Hebrew lexicology. For more recent version of the theoretical model, cf. de Blois (2002, pp 209–229 and 2003). 22 23

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

267

encyclopaedic meaning.25 It further illustrates the historical and cultural embeddedness of word meanings. In the light of this view of word meaning, current Biblical Hebrew cannot be regarded as a very useful source of information as far as the full meaning of BH lexical items are concerned. Although Hardmeier (2003, p. 15) strongly advocates the use of what he calls “instructional semantics” instead of “representational semantics”, and argues that the meaning of words and expressions must be determined in terms of their use, I miss in his work (2003) any reference to or application of some of the sophisticated insights gained in cognitive semantic circles to determine the meaning of lexical items or grammatical constructions. The same applies to Talstra (2002). 2. Grammar is conceptualization. According to Croft and Cruse (2004, p. 3), “A major aspect of human cognitive ability is the conceptualization of the experience to be communicated (and also the conceptualization of the linguistic knowledge we possess)”. In this regards, among other things, Gestalt psychology inspired models concerning the conceptual processes in semantics, in particular how categorization takes place and knowledge is organized. Of particular interest for our purposes is the role of grammatical constructions to construe experiences to be communicated. Although to my knowledge relatively little empirical work has been done by the main exponents in the ﬁeld of cognitive discourse grammar, Werth (1999) provides a model that ﬁrmly rests on the insights of Cognitive Linguistics at the end of the 1990s. His deﬁnition of discourse, in my opinion, testiﬁed to this, viz. discourse is “A deliberate and joint eﬀort on the part of a producer and recipient to build up a ‘world’ within which the propositions advanced are coherent and make complete sense”. I have found in recent years that the notion of “information structure” as developed by Lambrechts (1994) is in line with the basic tenets of Cognitive Linguistics, and provides a sophisticated notional framework for the analysis of word order in Biblical Hebrew. Its validity has recently been demonstrated in an analysis of the information structure of Deut 3 (Van der Merwe and Talstra 2002/3, pp. 68–107). In a doctoral project “From topic, focus, and information structure to theme 25 Jackendorf (2002, p. 286) remarks that “it is hard and perhaps impossible to draw the line between what is in the dictionary and what is in the encyclopedia for any particular item”.

268

christo h.j. van der merwe

in Biblical Hebrew narrative”, Floor (2004) has investigated the role that word order, among other things, may play in the identiﬁcation of themes and memory blocks (or macrostructures) in Biblical Hebrew narratives. The Cognitive Linguistic oriented model of discourse that is emerging from the above-mentioned investigations are throwing more and more light on those syntactic constructions in Biblical Hebrew that, on the one hand, has no communicative value, and those, on the other hand, that play a pivotal role in structuring the information of a text. We are slowly starting to get a clearer picture of the lexical and grammatical mechanisms of Biblical Hebrew that make the gist of a cluster of coherent clauses, i.e. a memory block, sticks. 3. Language is symbolic in nature and grammar is a theory of how linguistic expressions can be analyzed in terms of symbolic relations. This so-called “symbolic” hypothesis implies that “language is in essence a means for relating sound and meaning” (Taylor 2002, p. 20). One of the most signiﬁcant implications of this for the “grammatical” description of language is that the lexicon, morphology and syntax of a language form a continuum of symbolic structures. These structures “diﬀer along various parameters but can be divided into separate components only arbitrarily”. Elaborating on what this entails is beyond the scope of this paper, but it certainly warrants further investigation. 4. Knowledge of language emerges from language use.26 A key concept of the assumption is that language is “the embodiment of meaning”. This basically means that “categories and structures in semantics, syntax, morphology and phonology are built up from our cognition of speciﬁc utterances on speciﬁc occasions of use”.27 This does not mean that all aspects of an individual speaker’s use of language in a particular communication situation has necessarily one or other functional explanation. Many aspects of a speech community’s language are rather the result of the conventionalized categories and structures, categories and structures that often subjected in time to large-scale abstractions 26 On the basis of an investigation of the relationship between the language and spatial cognition across a variety of languages, Levinson (2003, p. xxi) ﬁnds “central evidence for a co-evolutionary perspective on human cognition, wherein culture and the biological foundations for cognition have co-evolved and mutually adapted”. 27 Marmarido (2000) also deﬁnes pragmatics as “the study of the use of language to structure reality as meaningful experience”. For a more detailed discussion of Marmarido, cf. Van der Merwe (2002, pp. 2–24).

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

269

and schematization. This view of language has signiﬁcant implications for the interpretation of polysemes, metaphors, ﬁxed expressions and idioms.28 My depiction of Cognitive Linguistics is in many respects very cursory. As far as its controversial aspects are concerned, I will concentrate on only two issues: 1. It must be acknowledged that, although Cognitive Linguistics has been inspired by many of the ﬁndings in cognitive psychology and empirical research on the working of the brain, we still know very little “how neural instantiations support functional organization especially at a level as complex as language” (Jackendorf 2002, p. 90). 2. The notion that semantic considerations entirely determine syntax can be called into question (Jackendorf 2002, p. 148). While the ﬁrst reservation may protect one against making premature claims concerning a new theory that will solve all our problems, the second one raises an issue that I believe has signiﬁcant implications for determining which argument patterns in Hebrew have semantic relevance and which ones have to be accounted for in terms of syntactic rules. To conclude this section: Cognitive Linguistics and connectionist theories of the brain unfortunately do not yet provide us with readymade models of how humans process and comprehend texts that could be used to construct hypertext systems that simulate exegesis as a process of reading. However, it will be diﬃcult to deny that this new approach to the study of language and language use provides scholars of the Hebrew Bible with more sophisticated frames of reference for determining the meaning of Biblical Hebrew texts at the level of words, phrases, clauses and texts than those that have been available to date. Although the role of hypertext technology might be more modest than hypertext theorists claimed a few years ago, this technology has a contribution to make in the process of, ﬁrst, the application of (and experimentation with) insights obtained from the ﬁeld of cognitive linguistics, and, second, the communication and scrutiny of new insights obtained. Assessing these hypotheses is the topic of the next section. 28 A volume with 11 essays, edited by Feyarts (2003), entitled The Bible Through Metaphor and Translation. Cognitive Semantic Perspective unfortunately reached me too late to be considered for the purposes of this paper.

270

christo h.j. van der merwe 3. Hypertext

In order to assess the contribution hypertext technology can make to some aspects of the exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, and in particular to the two hypotheses referred to above, the following are needed beforehand: 1. a working deﬁnition of the notion “hypertext technology”; 2. reasons why hypertext theorists consider this technology to have so much potential (more than book technology) for the comprehension of literary texts, and by implication for the Bible as an ancient literary artefact, and 3. why at this stage much of the enthusiasm of hypertext theorists may have to be tempered. I consider hypertext technology as a computer-based mode of documentation that allows the creation of documents as networks of electronically encoded information (in the form of text, audio or visual material) called nodes. These nodes are linked by authors in various ways and for diﬀerent purposes. These authors allow their users the opportunity to follow diﬀerent electronically created paths through the information systems. In a well-constructed hypertext document users are normally also allowed optional access to diﬀerent types and various levels of detailed information without losing their original context. The most widely used of hypertext technology is without doubt the World Wide Web. In the ﬁeld of biblical studies Libronix, Bible Works and Tim Bulkeley’s Amos on-line commentary are typical applications of this technology. In this investigation no speciﬁc application of hypertext technology is critically assessed. Empirical evidence whether and/or in what way this technology has indeed the potential to represent a remediation of book print technology for readers, interpreters and scholars of the Bible will rather be the focus of the study. In order to understand the enthusiasm for hypertext and hypermedia, one has, according to Bolter (2001, p. 47), to appreciate its role as a new medium for writing in a visually driven culture. Writing has through the ages given rise to various types of technologies: in the beginning signs and letters were painted on rocks, cut out on stone or imprinted in clay; later they were written on papyrus rolls and on paged books (codexes). For these paged books initially parchment was used and later paper. Each new technology tried to improve on the previous one. This often gave rise to new ways of structuring the writing

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

271

space, e.g. the introduction of word divisions, headings, white spaces, etc. (Bolter 2001, p. 22). In this way the printed book may be regarded as a remediation of the “manuscript by appearing to provide the same visual space as manuscripts with the added beneﬁts of mass production” (Bolter 2001, p. 24). It has also be realized that it is primarily book technology that established the idea of a text as a ﬁxed product that has to be read in a linear fashion and that belongs to a distant author. The author has all the power. A reader is invited to a conversation with an author, but denied any participation. The book is protected by copyright and owned by the author. In medieval manuscripts, though, the margins often belonged to the readers. According to hypertext theorists Derrida, Barthes and Foucault reacted in particular to the idea of the author as the father of a book (work) with ﬁxed boundaries (Bolter 2001, p. 179). They, among other things, highlighted the openness of a text and all the various inter-texts (i.e. cognitive environments) that come into play when any text is read. What poststructuralist theories therefore react to is a notion of text that has been established by book technology. Since “the guiding metaphor for hypertext is not the bound and complete text but a networked inter-text” (Johnson-Eilola 1992, p. 111 as quoted in Snyder 1996, pp. 52), it is understandable why hypertext theorists (e.g. Landow 1997) regards hypertext as the remediation of print. Bolter (2001, p. 42) remarks aptly in this regard: Hypertext in all its electronic forms—the World Wide Web as well as the many stand-alone systems—is the remediation of print. Writers and designers promote hypertext as a means of improving on the older medium, or more precisely on the genres associated with the medium of print, such as the novel, the technical report, and the humanistic essay. Where printed genres are linear or hierarchical, hypertext is multiple and associative. Where printed text is static, a hypertext responds to the reader’s touch. The reader can move through a hypertext document in a variety of reading orders.

One does not have to accept any of the tenets of poststructuralist literary theories (e.g. deconstruction) to be enthusiastic about the advantages that hypertext technology may have for biblical exegesis. If one accepts the view that biblical exegesis is the documentation of processes of reading, and acknowledges the ﬁndings of studies into the ways that language is processed, in particular that an enormous number of knowledge bases are involved in human communication, hypertext technology opens new horizons for the study of the Hebrew Bible

272

christo h.j. van der merwe

in terms of linking various types of relevant information to the text of the Bible.29 This is exactly what Tim Bulkeley and Bible software vendors have done in recent years. If the sheer number of people that visit Bulkeley’s website (about 900 per day) or the growth of Libronix and Bible Works are an indication, the usefulness of these applications speaks for itself.30 As I have indicated earlier I will not critically discuss any of these applications of hypertext technology here. I would rather indirectly assess their application of hypertext technology critically by reconsidering the promises of hypertext in the light of the “sobering” results of a so-called user-centre perspective (cf. Dillon 1996 and Fritz 1996 discussed in the next paragraph) in current hypertext research.31 However, it has to be kept in mind that most of this research focused on the value of hypertext technology for the purposes of reading and understanding texts by a variety of audiences. These studies were not necessarily aimed at taking into consideration the needs of exegetes and/or literary scholars. Dillon (1996, pp. 28–32) is of the opinion that hypertext applications are often accompanied by four widespread oversimpliﬁcations or “myths” as he calls them: 1. “Associative linking of information is natural in that it mimics the working of the human mind”; 2. “Paper is a linear and therefore a constraining medium”; 3. “Rapid access to a large manipulable mass of information will lead to better use and meaning”; and 4. “Future technologies will solve all current problems”. Brief remarks on the ﬁrst and second of the myths should suﬃce here. As far as the ﬁrst one is concerned: although the association of information by means of hypertext appears to be more natural to users than paper presentations, and as Dillon (1996, pp. 28) puts it “Natu29 This is in line with a widespread “intuition that computer systems with their capacity of quickly selecting, retrieving, and arranging data, may facilitate the interaction of information and information users” (Rouet and Levonen 1996, p. 10). 30 Bulkeley (2002. pp. 641–651) points out a number of implications that hypertext technology has for the writing of a hypertext commentary, in particular for the format and structuring of the information. 31 According to Rouet et al. (1996, pp. 4–5), the second perpective in hypertext research, the so-called system-centred one, receives the most attention. It focuses on the technical aspects of hypertext sytems, e.g. possible architectures, processing routines, etc.

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

273

ralistic associationism as manifest in the hypertext literature holds that knowledge representation is represented cognitively in some form of semantic network or web. The exact form, however, is rarely precisely stated and terms such as schemata and network, scripts, and webs are employed … with little recourse to contemporary psycholinguistic developments”. As far as the second one is concerned: although paper has a physical linear format, there is little evidence that readers are constrained by this feature of paper or that they read only in a start-to-ﬁnish way. Reading a sentence is a linear activity, even on a computer screen, at least at sentence and paragraph level. According to Dillon (1996, 30), “In accepting too uncritically the myth, many hypertext developments seem more concerned with superﬁcial presentational details than with formal analysis of information presentation and processing”. These oversimpliﬁcations might be explained as, among other things, premature jumping from theoretical models in the cognitive sciences to applications. Apart from these “oversimpliﬁcations”, it appears that hypertext applications tend to be technology driven. Enthusiasm about the capabilities of the technology override questions concerning the usability and acceptability of these applications (Dillon 1996, p. 28). According to Foltz (1996., p. 110), “Up to this point, no standards or deﬁnitive rules exists on how to develop an eﬀective hypertext”. McKnight (1996, p. 234) in a paper entitled “What makes a good hypertext?” concurs in this regard by stating that “there are still many … problems to be addressed before hypertext will be exploited fully”. For Foltz (1996, p. 132) “the future of hypertext depends on improving both models of the users and models of the text”. This is because texts, readers and their tasks diﬀer tremendously and at this stage a good hypertext “is one developed through user-centred, task-based design of the information resource” (McKnight 1996, p. 234). Instructive is a recent remark by Susan Hockey (2004, p. 361), one of the pioneers in the development of electronic texts in humanities: Leading textual scholars have embraced the idea of electronic texts, and textuality and have speculated at length about this new medium, … In practical terms, however, we are very much farther behind. Few implementations exist, and most of these are, in my view, poorly designed and weak in functionality.

Hypertext systems on the texts of the Bible, like Bible Works and Libronix are for a range of users useful sources of on-line information, they can be used to perform a variety of sophisticated searches, they allow the

274

christo h.j. van der merwe

making of interesting comparisons, etc. Scholars who use the systems tend to complain rather about the publications that are not available in those systems than about their technological capabilities. Scholars are often less concerned about the user-friendliness of those systems than in getting the data or information that they want. This is perhaps one of the reasons why some Bible software companies continue to digitize books, despite the fact that it has been established that a computer screen requires a diﬀerent organisation of information than the pages of a book. I know of no systematic research on the eﬀectiveness of current hypertext applications to the text of the Bible for various users with different types of need. Furthermore, if I take Hockey’s above-mentioned observation seriously, it appears to me that my enthusiasm concerning hypertext technology as a means of making a contribution to biblical exegesis has to be tempered. However, this state of aﬀairs does not diminish the theoretical potential of the new technology. It just means that the most responsible way to embrace the new technology at this stage is to concentrate on those areas where it has been established that hypertext documents will be more successful than linear text. Foltz (1996, pp. 131–132) identiﬁes three such areas: 1. The inherent capacity of hypertext documents to perform searches for relevant types of information in an eﬃcient manner; 2. The potential of representing textual information that cannot be easily represented in linear form, e.g. the hierarchical relationship between arguments in a text. This does not imply only the on-line use of relevant background information, but also giving a reader better direct access to the bigger structure of a text at any point in the text; 3. The potential to provide additional information on-line that correlates with users own background knowledge. In the survey of Cognitive Linguistics earlier in this paper, I argued that this new theory of language and language use has the greatest potential in making a contribution to biblical exegesis by providing a sophisticated and empirically motivated theoretical frame of reference for the analysis of meaning in Hebrew texts at the level of the word, phrase, clause and texts. For this purpose a tool is required for the compilation and manipulation of the distributional patterns of word, phrase, clauses and texts.

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

275

Although the role assigned to syntax in cognitive linguistics is questioned in some circles, and the relevance of the syntactic and semantic valency patterns for lexical semantics still need to be determined, a hypertext system of the Hebrew Bible that could be used to search and compile data at the level of word, phrase, clause and text will be invaluable to address exactly these issues.32 At this stage such a system would be aimed mainly for use by scholars. However—and this is technically possible—if it allows, for example, scholars to compile with a few keystrokes the syntactic distribution of lexical items, or to correlate in the case of verbs the syntactic patterns with the semantic roles and roles of the verb’s constituents, a more adequate description of the BH lexicon will without doubt be served. The new Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible that forms part of the Libronix electronic libraries is certainly a bold step in this direction. This type of hypertext system could again be linked to Vocabula, an electronic instrument that has been developed to compile a new Semantic Dictionary of the Biblical Hebrew.33 The semantic model underlying this dictionary is based on insights from cognitive semantics in the description of the Biblical Hebrew lexicon.34 In this electronic dictionary the semantic frames and scripts of lexical items are recorded whenever relevant and/or possible. One of the features of this new dictionary is that it links each occurrence of a lexeme in the Hebrew Bible to a lexical description of that lexeme in terms of its relevant frame, script or other relevant encyclopaedic information. Although we are talking here about a wish list of research instruments for specialists, and a lexicon in the process of compilation, it illustrates the real-world potential of hypertext technology for the better understanding of Hebrew texts. What is more, in the case of the abovementioned lexicon, the results of the lexical descriptions could be made available on the Internet as the project progresses. These results will then theoretically be open to scrutiny by the scholarly community and can be updated and corrected as new insights are gained. So, even the text of a hypertext dictionary needs not to be ﬁxed and ﬁnal! Another type of project that has the potential to utilize one of the “strengths” of hypertext technology to make a contribution to Biblical 32 Cf. the notion “computer philology” (Hardmeier 2000, pp. 9–31). Talstra and Sikkel (2000, pp. 33–68) describe the linguistic data structures underlying such a type of hypertext system. 33 Cf. de Blois (2002). 34 Cf. de Blois (2003) and Van der Merwe (2004b).

276

christo h.j. van der merwe

exegesis is one in which the information structure of Hebrew texts are tagged in terms of various theoretical models, e.g. the surface level oriented model proposed by Talstra (2002) and the more Cognitive Linguistic oriented one developed at the University of Stellenbosch.35 The criteria used in each case would by deﬁnition be transparent and open to scrutiny as would be the hierarchical organization of the texts.36 Making the results of these experiments available to other scholars (on a platform such as that provided by Libronix) may give a new dimension to scholarly activities concerning a ﬁnal form of the Massoretic text. 4. Conclusions In this investigation I tried to identify the potential of a new theory in another discipline and a new technology for contributing to biblical exegesis. Trying to get a ﬁrm grip on an emerging ﬁeld of study, as well as a new technology was not easy, and in fact it often jeopardised my own optimism. My attempt to look as broadly as possible might have caused me to miss many details. However, this study was motivated, on the one hand, by a dedication to curb the opportunism that is often associated with interdisciplinary research. On the other hand, it probed for solutions from the perspective of a scholar with speciﬁc needs and tried to address clearly deﬁned problem areas. I would like to summarize the ﬁndings of this investigation as follows: – Considering biblical exegesis as the documentation of the process of reading has been regarded in this study as a valid way to acknowledge the historical character of the text of the Hebrew Bible and the variety of audiences involved in its comprehension throughout the ages. – Talstra (2002) provides sound arguments as to why the analysis of the ﬁnal form of a text of the Hebrew Bible should be one of the points of departure of the exegetical process. – Although Cognitive Linguistics is still ﬁnding its feet, and provides no ready-made frame of reference that can be uncritically applied 35

For the results of a “paper based” experiment in this regards, cf. Van der Merwe and Talstra (2002/2003, pp. 68–106). 36 Cf. Van der Merwe (2004b) for the ﬁrst steps of a more comprehensive project in this direction.

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

–

–

–

–

277

to the description of Biblical Hebrew, it provides an intuitively real perspective on the study of meaning at all “levels” of linguistic description. Cognitive Linguistics’ main contribution to date has been in the ﬁeld of lexical semantics. Its denial of any real distinction between semantics and pragmatics, and in particular between the dictionary meaning and encyclopaedic meaning of lexemes, has significant implications for the role of Biblical Hebrew lexica in the analysis of Biblical Hebrew texts. The role of hypertext technology as a remediation of book technology for an increasingly visually oriented culture should be appreciated. Many current “hypertext” applications in educational circles appear to be technology-driven, and are not based on well-founded models of text comprehension and models of users (e.g. their needs, their knowledge and capabilities, their attitudes and strategies in the use of computer technology, etc.). Hypertext technology, however, does provide the means for scholars of the Hebrew Bible to conduct research in a way that has not been possible to date and/or foreseen in terms of book technology. The analysis, description and dissemination of results of studies of the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and experiments on the information structure of Hebrew texts could be regarded as ﬁrst steps in this direction.

Bibliography J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament. Method in Biblical Study (Louisville, 1996). E. Bates, “On the nature and nurture of language”, Available at http://crl. uscd.edu/~bates/, (forthcoming). J.D. Bolter, Writing Space. Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (London, 2001). T. Bulkeley, “Commentary Beyond the Codex: Hypertext and the Art of Biblical Commentary”, in: J. Cook (ed.), Bible and Computer. (Leiden and Boston, 2002), pp. 641–651. ———, “Hypertext and Biblical Studies”, SBL Forum at: http://www.sbl-site.org/ Article.aspx?ArticleId=261 J. Costermans, and M. Fayol (eds.), Processing Interclausal Relationships: Studies in the Production and Comprehension of Text (Mahwah, New Jersey, 1997). W. Croft and Cruse, D.A., Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge, 2004).

278

christo h.j. van der merwe

R. de Blois, Towards a New Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew Based on Semantic Domains. (Doctoral dissertation. Amsterdam, Free University, 2000). ———, “Semantic Domains for Biblical Hebrew”, in: J. Cook (ed.), Bible and Computer. (Leiden and Boston, 2002), pp. 209–229. ———, “Lexicography and Cognitive Linguistics: Hebrew Metaphors from a Cognitive Perspective”, Paper read at United Bible Societies, Triannual Translation Workshop, Iguassu Falls, Brazil, June 2003. A. Dillon, “Myths, Misconceptions, and an Alternative Perspective on Information Use and the Electronic Medium”, in: J.-F. Rouet et al. (eds.), Hypertext and Cognition. (Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996), pp. 25–42. A. Disse, Informationsstruktur im Biblischen Hebräisch: Sprachwissenschaftliche Grundlagen und exegetische Konsequenzen Einrt Korpusuntersuchungen zu den Büchern Deuteronomium, Richter und 2 Könige (St. Ottilien, 1998). K. Feyaerts (ed.), The Bible through Metaphor and Translation. A Cognitive Semantic Perspective. Religions and Discourse 15. (Oxford, 2003). S. Floor, From Topic, Focus and Information Structure to Theme in Biblical Hebrew Narrative. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, 2004). G. Fohrer, et al, Exegese als Literaturwissenschaft. Entwurf einer Alttestamentlichen Literaturtheorie und Methodologie (Göttingen, 1971). P.W. Foltz, “Comprehension, Coherence, and Strategies in Hypertext and Linear Text”, in: J.-F. Rouet et al (ed.), Hypertext and Cognition. (Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996), pp. 109–136. C. Hardmeier, Prophetie im Streit vor der Untergang Judas. Erzählkommunikative Studien zur Entstehungssituation der Jesaja- und Jeremiaerzählungen in II Reg 18–20 und Jer 37–40. BZAW (Berlin, 1990). ———, “Was ist Computerphilologie? Theorie, Anwendungsfelder und Methoden—Eine Skizze”, in: C. Hardmeier, W. Syring, J.D. Range, & E.Talstra (eds.), Ad Fontes! Quellen Erfassen—Lesen—Deuten. Was is Computerphilologie? (Amsterdam, 2000), pp. 9–31. ———, Textwelten der Bible entdecken. Grundlagen und verfahren einer textpragmatischen Literaturwissenschaft der Bible Textpragmatische Studien Zur Hebräischen Bibel; (Gütersloh, 2003). S. Hockey, “The Reality of Electronic Texts”, in: R. Modiano, L.F Searle, and P. Shillingsburg (eds.), Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies (London, 2004). J.H. Harken, “Inferential Processing and the Comprehension of Literary Texts”, Journal of Semantics 28 (1999), pp. 79–91. R. Jackendoﬀ, Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution (Oxford, 2002). L.C. Jonker, “Winds of Change? Recent Developments in Old Testament Exegetical Methodology in Germany”, NGTT (forthcoming). W. Kintsch, Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition (Cambridge, 1998). K. Lambrecht, Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus and the Mental Representation of Discourse Referents Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 71; (Cambridge, 1994). G.P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (Baltimore and London, 1997).

biblical exegesis, cognitive linguistics and hypertext

279

S.S.A. Marmaridou, Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2000). C. Mcknight, 1996. “What Makes a Good Hypertext?”, in: H. van Oostendorp and S. Smul (ed.), Cognitive Aspects of Electronic Text Processing. (Norwood, New Jersey, 1996). J.-F. Rouet, J.L. Levonen, A. Dillon, and R.J. Spiro (eds.), Hypertext and Cognition (Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996). ——— and J.J. Levonen, “An Introduction to Hypertext and Cognition”, in: J.F. Rouet et al (eds.), Hypertext and Cognition. (Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996), pp. 3–8. H. Schweizer, Metaphorische Grammatik: Wege zur Integration von Grammatik und Textinterpretation in der Exegese (St Ottilien, 1981). I. Snyder, Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth (Victoria, 1996). E. Talstra and C. Sikkel, “Genese und Kategorienentwicklung der WivuDatenbank oder: Ein Versuch, dem Computer Hebräisch beizubringen”, in: C. Hardmeier, W. Syring, J.D. Range & E. Talstra (eds.), Ad Fontes! Quellen Erfassen-Lesen-Deuten. Was ist Computerphilologie? (Amsterdam, 2000), pp. 33– 68. E. Talstra, Oude En Nieuwe Lezers: Een Inleiding in De Methoden Van Uitleg Van Het Oude Testament (Kampen, 2002). ——— and C.H.J. van der Merwe, “Analysis, Retrieval and the Demand for More Data. Integrating the Results of a Formal Textlinguistic and Cognitive Based Pragmatic Approach to the Analysis of Deut 4:1–40”, in: J. Cook (ed.), Bible and Computer—Proceedings of the 6 th Aibi Congress—Stellenbosch 17–21 July 2000. (Leiden, 2002), pp. 43–78. J.R. Taylor, Cognitive Grammar, Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics (Oxford, 2002). H. Utzschneider, “Text-Reader-Author. Towards a Theory of Exegesis. Some European Viewpoints”, JHS 1 (1996), pp. 1–22. C.H.J. van der Merwe, “Bible Commentaries as Hypertext”, Old Testament Essays 13 (2000), pp. 119–128. ———, “The Bible and Hypertext Technology: Challenges for Maximizing the Use of a New Type of Technology in Biblical Studies”, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 28/1 (2002), pp. 87–102. ———, “Some Recent Trends in Biblical Hebrew Linguistics. A few Pointers Towards a More Comprehensive Theory of Language Use”, Hebrew Studies 44 (2003), pp. 7–24. ———, “Computer Technology as Impetus for a Multi-level Hebrew-English Interlinear Translation”, Paper read at a conference organized by the American Bible Society: Translating with Computer-assisted Technology: Changes in Research, Teaching, Evaluation and Practice. The Bible in the Age of Technology, Rome, April 2004a. ———, “Towards a Principled Model for Biblical Hebrew Lexicology”, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 30/1 (2004b), pp. 119–137. ——— and E. Talstra, “Biblical Hebrew Word Order: The Interface of Information Structure and Formal Features”, Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 15/16 (2002/3), pp. 68–107.

280

christo h.j. van der merwe

P. Weingart, “Interdisciplinarity: The Paradoxical Discourse”, in: N. Weingart and N. Stehr, (eds.), Practising Interdisciplinarity. (London, 2000), pp. 25–41. P. Werth, Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse (Singapore, 1999).

THE MANUMISSION OF HERMENEUTICS: THE SLAVE LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH AS A CHALLENGE TO CONTEMPORARY PENTATEUCHAL THEORY*

Bernard M. Levinson Alongside the history of sacriﬁce1 and the festival calendar,2 the question of the sequence and relation of the laws concerning manumission of slaves has been essential to any larger attempt to construct a history of Israelite religion and a compositional history of the Pentateuch. The manumission laws are particularly appropriate for such attention. They oﬀer an embarrassment of riches, with each of the primary legal collections of the Pentateuch having its own manumission law. In the Covenant Code (hereafter, CC), there are two laws that govern male and female slaves, respectively (Exod. 21: 2–6, 7–11). In Deuteronomy * I wish to thank the Organizing Committee of the XVIIIth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament for the invitation to present a plenary lecture and for the generous hospitality in Leiden. Particular gratitude is extended to President Arie van der Kooij and to Secretary Konrad D. Jenner, with both of whom there were further valuable intellectual exchanges touching on the Peshitta and text-criticism. The Congresses are distinctive for the high level of dialogue that they facilitate. This article, which extensively reworks the original lecture, is dedicated to the memory of my beloved sister Barbara Frances Grimson, née Levinson, who died in Toronto of metastatic breast cancer on 9 June 2004, three days before her fortieth wedding anniversary, not yet age 65. 1 Pointedly beginning his attempt to challenge the standard model of the documentary hypothesis with a new approach to the altar law of Exod. 20:24 is J. Van Seters, A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code (New York, 2003), pp. 8, 57–67. For an analysis, see B.M. Levinson, “Is the Covenant Code an Exilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters,” in J. Day (ed.), In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, JSOTSup 406 (London and New York, 2004), pp. 272–325. 2 Making this point on the importance of the Passover law to the larger question of the dating of the pentateuchal sources, see T. Veijola, “The History of Passover in the Light of Deuteronomy 16, 1–8,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 2 (1996), pp. 53–75. For alternative analyses of the literary history involved, see inter alia, B.M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York and Oxford, 1997), pp. 53–97; E. Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien, BZAW 284 (Berlin, 1999), pp. 324–340; and Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, pp. 162–171.

282

bernard m. levinson

(D), one law governs both genders (Deut. 15:12–18).3 The slave law of the Holiness Code (H) prohibits Israelites from holding fellow Israelites as slaves but permits a hired-servant model of relationship; this law is embedded in the broader jubilee legislation of Leviticus 25 (at vv. 39–44). The prophetic corpus also provides an important reﬂection of manumission in the legal narrative of Jer. 34:8–22. This embarrassment of riches has another side. Precisely because of the diversity of sources, any attempt to think through the issues in a new way requires crossing over a number of diﬀerent sub-specializations within the discipline, each of which has its own immense literature and series of assumptions. The conventional assumption of the priority of CC to D has been challenged by recent arguments on behalf of an exilic Yahwist. The priority of D to H has been challenged by recent attempts to defend H as pre-exilic and as a literary source for D. It is of course impossible to address all these separate areas of scholarship here in an adequate way. Instead, the goal here is to review the alternative proposals that have been raised, highlight issues of methodology, and propose some alternative ways of thinking about the literary relationship and composition of the texts involving manumission. Underlying this investigation is the conviction that the analysis of biblical law and legal history provides an essential foundation for the renewal of contemporary pentateuchal theory.4 In 1886, Abraham Kuenen framed the issue trenchantly: “But what then? Must the law stand with the narratives, or must the narra-

3 For the most sustained analysis of the literary relation of the manumission laws of D and CC in recent years, see N. Lohﬁnk, “Fortschreibung? Zur Technik vom Rechtsrevisionen im deuteronomischen Bereich, erörtert an Deuteronomium 12, Ex 21,2–11 und Dtn 15,12–18,” in T. Veijola (ed.), Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen, Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62 (Göttingen, 1996), pp. 133–181; reprinted in and cited according to idem, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur, IV, SBAB 31 (Stuttgart, 2000), pp. 163–203. This important study demonstrates the extent to which the manumission law in Deuteronomy can only be understood as a signiﬁcant literary reworking of the law found in the Covenant Code. The article is overlooked in Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora (2003; published in late 2002). Lohﬁnk develops important methodological criteria to distinguish the concept of Fortschreibung from alternative models of literary reworking. 4 This article draws on research in progress for my next book, Rethinking Revelation and Redaction: The Role of Intellectual Models within Biblical Studies (Oxford University Press). On the importance of grounding pentateuchal theory upon a ﬁrm analysis of biblical law, see idem, “Introduction,” in B.M. Levinson (ed.), Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development, JSOTSup 181 (Sheﬃeld, 1994; reprint, London, 2005), pp. 9–14.

the manumission of hermeneutics

283

tives fall with the laws? I could not hesitate for a moment in accepting the latter alternative.”5

I. The Standard Model and Its Challenges Until recently, the standard source critical model seemed secure as regards the development of the manumission laws. First came that of the Covenant Code, requiring manumission of male slaves in the seventh year; then, that of Deuteronomy, with the same numerical scheme, although with a series of revisions triggered primarily by centralization and a liberalizing humanism. Next came the prophetic narrative of Jeremiah 34, which recounts how Zedekiah sought to implement the law while the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, presumably so as to add soldiers to the militia. That manumission of convenience failed, when the owners re-enslaved those whom they had manumitted. Finally, the author of the Holiness Code (in Leviticus 25) drew the logical consequences of that failure of manumission in the seventh year. Desperately hoping in some way to salvage the institution, he deferred it to the jubilee in the ﬁftieth year. For the most part, the challenges to that model were few.6 The main challenge, both on the German and on the Israeli sides, was to dispute 5 A. Kuenen, An Historico-critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch, tr. P.H. Wicksteed, 2 vols. (London, 1886), 1.xxii. Perhaps ironically, the ﬁrst publication of this statement in conjunction with the volume was in English, in the Introduction prepared by the translator speciﬁcally for this publication, as he responds to recent developments in source-critical scholarship (see “Translator’s Preface,” vii). Wicksteed drew material for the Introduction from Kuenen’s publications in journals. The second Dutch edition of Kuenen’s three-volume work, published the following year, does not include this Introduction; see Abraham Kuenen, Historisch-critisch Onderzoek naar het Onstaan en de Verzameling van de Boeken des Ouden Verbonds, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1887). On his signiﬁcance, see A. Rofé, “Abraham Kuenen’s Contribution to the Study of the Pentateuch: A View from Israel,” in P.B. Dirkson and A. van der Kooij (eds.), Abraham Kuenen (1828–1891): His Major Contributions to the Study of the Old Testament, OTS 29 (Leiden, 1993), pp. 105–112. 6 A signiﬁcant early challenge was posed by Carl Steuernagel, who denied the dependence of Deuteronomy’s manumission law upon that of the Covenant Code on the basis of the stipulations in Exod. 21:3–4 lacking correspondence in Deut. 15:12–18 (Das Deuteronomium, HAT I.3.1; 2d ed. [Göttingen, 1923], p. 110). For a recent reﬂection of that same objection on linguistic grounds, overlooking the similarity to Steuernagel’s position, see W.S. Morrow, Scribing the Center: Organization and Redaction in Deuteronomy 14:1–17:13, SBLMS 49 (Atlanta, 1995), p. 116. On both authors, and responding to the substantive issue, see Otto, Deuteronomium, p. 310 n. 467.

284

bernard m. levinson

literary dependence altogether: to see the three pentateuchal manumission laws, not as representing the development of legislation but rather, as independent crystallizations of a common legal theme. That argument was mapped out most comprehensively by the Israeli scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann, who denied any literary relation between biblical and cuneiform law, on the one hand, or among any of the pentateuchal legal collections, on the other.7 More than three decades later, a similar approach was taken by Rosario Pius Merendino on a much smaller scale, unconscious of the extent to which he was duplicating Kaufmann’s arguments, who passes unmentioned in his bibliography.8 An analogy to this approach might be one that regarded the Synoptic Gospels as having no literary relation between them whatsoever: as if neither Matthew nor Luke had access to Mark but drew only, independently, upon Q. Neither Kaufmann nor Merendino was in a position to take account of the contributions of Assyriology, which establish the extent to which the legal collections of the ancient Near East do in fact represent a scribal curriculum in which literary development takes place.9 Merendino was restricted by a rigid form-critical methodology that recognized only short, rhythmic, oral sayings as original. Kaufmann’s work, needless to say, never entered the mainstream. Initially marginalized by its language, it remained so, even after appearing in abridged translation, because of its questioning not simply the literary relation of the sources but, more fundamentally, their sequence, with his argument for a pre-exilic setting for the priestly source.10 7 See Y. Kaufmann, Toledot ha-’emuna ha-yi´ sre’elit, 8 vols. in 4 ( Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1937–1956), 1.113–142, 201–203 (Hebrew); abridged as The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, tr. M. Greenberg (Chicago, 1960), p. 205. 8 R.P. Merendino, Das deuteronomische Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungs- und überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Dt 12–26, BBB 31 (Bonn, 1969), pp. 401–402. 9 The sequence of marriage laws in The Laws of Eshnunna §§28–30 are reused and signiﬁcantly expanded in the range of topics addressed by The Laws of Hammurabi §§128–136, which nonetheless still preserve the basic sequence and structure of their literary matrix. For a clear analysis, see B.L. Eichler, “Literary Structure in the Laws of Eshnunna,” in F. Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, American Oriental Series 67 (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), p. 83. 10 Kaufmann’s view was much more nuanced than generally recognized. While arguing that P is pre-exilic, he concedes the exilic or post-exilic context for its incorporation into the Pentateuch, which is the main point. That distinction, whereby even for Kaufmann the literary impact of P is late, seems to have been lost sight of in the current disputes about the dating of this corpus. For all practical purposes, Kaufmann’s position is thus consistent, not inconsistent, with the more standard European account of the history of pentateuchal literature. On Kaufmann’s marginalization, see T. Krapf, Die

the manumission of hermeneutics

285

II. The Second Stage: More Recent Challenges Over the past two decades a series of important challenges to the consensus have appeared. The process begins with Sara Japhet’s groundbreaking contribution to the Loewenstamm Festschrift in 1978, which was subsequently translated into English.11 A similar proposal had been made slightly earlier by Jacob Weingreen, maintaining that the requirement to free indentured workers in the jubilee (Lev. 25:39–46) exegetically transforms the manumission law of Deut. 15:12–18.12 There, however, the priority of H to D was more assumed than self-consciously defended. In contrast, Japhet’s article explicitly addresses the problem of the literary relation of the various manumission laws and seeks to develop criteria to establish their correct sequence. The article is ambitious. Beginning with the protasis of the manumission law of the Covenant Code (CC), éøáò ãáò äð÷ú éë, “If you purchase a Hebrew slave” (Exod. 21:2), Japhet reviews the many arguments that have been made to emend the text. The second-person verb in that protasis has long been seen as a problem, since it conﬂicts with the third-person verb that is standard both in the other casuistic laws of the Covenant Code and in the sˇumma clauses of cuneiform legal collections, such as the Laws of Hammurabi.13 For this reason, early form critics routinely required an emendation of the text to the third perPriesterschrift und die vorexilische Zeit: Yehezkel Kaufmanns vernachlässigter Beitrag zur Geschichte der biblischen Religion, OBO 119 (Freiburg and Göttingen, 1992); and idem, Yehezkel Kaufmann: Ein Lebens- und Erkenntnisweg zur Theologie der Hebräischen Bibel, Studien zu Kirche und Israel 11 (Berlin, 1990). 11 Personal circumstances unfortunately made it impossible to accept a welcome invitation to contribute to M. Bar Asher et al. (eds.), Essays in Honor of Sara Japhet ( Jerusalem, 2006), as I would otherwise have gladly done. When I spent a year at the Hebrew University (1979–1980), it was with her that I ﬁrst read Exodus in Hebrew. The class (whose focus was chs. 1–15) provided a model of graduate instruction that remains important for me, as was her generosity with her time. In this study, while disagreeing with the conclusions of an article that has long sustained my interest, I wish to express enduring gratitude for the critical reading skills that she helped hone, as well as for her kindness that year. See S. Japhet, “The Laws of Manumission of Slaves,” in I. Avishur and J. Blau (eds.), Studies in Bible and the Ancient Near East: Presented to Samuel E. Loewenstamm on his Seventieth Birthday, 2 vols. ( Jerusalem, 1978), 2.231–249 (Hebrew; English abstract, 1.199–200); translated and cited according to eadem, “The Relationship between the Legal Corpora in the Pentateuch in Light of Manumission Laws,” in S. Japhet (ed.), Studies in Bible, 1986, ScrHier 31 ( Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 63–89. 12 J. Weingreen, From Bible to Mishnah: The Continuity of Tradition (Manchester, 1976), pp. 132–134. 13 On the cuneiform background and biblical use of the protasis marker in question,

286

bernard m. levinson

son.14 While reviewing these alternative reconstructions, Japhet notes that the formulation of Deuteronomy’s manumission law, êì øëîé éë éøáòä êéçà, “If your Hebrew brother sell himself to you” (Deut. 15:12) bears no imprint of the Exodus lemma and cannot be derived from it directly. Nor does the protasis reﬂect speciﬁcally Deuteronomic language or ideology. “It seems therefore that the only satisfactory explanation would be to postulate an additional source of literary inﬂuence, the traces of which may still be distinguished.”15 On that basis, she builds a sustained argument for Deuteronomy’s dependence upon Leviticus 25 in the Holiness Code, as the “additional source of literary inﬂuence”, to explain how the protasis of Deuteronomy’s manumission law became heir to the nip#al form of the verb mkr (see Lev. 25:39a and Deut. 15:12a).16 The inﬂuence of the Holiness Code is used to explain see B.M. Levinson and M.M. Zahn, “Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of éë and íà in the Temple Scroll,” DSD 9 (2002), pp. 295–346. 14 Referring to the predominance of the third person formulation, A. Jepsen maintained: “Eine Ausnahme von dieser Regel ﬁndet sich nur [Exod.] 21,2, wo der MT lautet: äð÷ú éë; da die zweite Person in den Mischpatim immer Zeichen eines Einschubs oder einer Überarbeitung ist, darf man annehmen, dass auch hier der Satz begann: Öéà äð÷é éë” (Untersuchung zum Bundesbuch, BWANT 41 [Stuttgart, 1927], p. 56). Albrecht Alt emended the text (a) to a third person verb in the imperfect and (b) to a formulation that would correspond with that of Deuteronomy’s manumission law: éë éøáò ùéà øëîé, “If a Hebrew man is sold.” See idem, Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts (Leipzig, 1934); reprinted in and cited according to idem, Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Munich, 1953) 1:278–332 (at 286–287). This issue is treated extensively by Japhet, “Relationship between the Legal Corpora,” pp. 70–72. Note the astute challenge to the various emendations and their rationale provided by Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, pp. 22–23 and 86–87 (there is a minor typo in the Hebrew on p. 86). 15 Japhet, “Relationship between the Legal Corpora,” p. 73 (emphasis added). 16 A semantic category confusion governs the point of departure for Japhet’s analysis and makes its conclusions all but inevitable. Japhet rejects Alt’s proposal, which was patterned after the nip #al formulation of Deut. 15:12, because it employs a passive verb (n. 14 above). She insists that the literary structure of the casuistic laws of the Covenant Code does not permit such a reconstruction: “It should be emphasized that the verb employed in the opening conditional clause is always active” (ibid., p. 72). She restricts any “passive formulation” to the “continuation of the laws,” where they may occur only in secondary conditions or elaborations (p. 72 n. 26). Since the verb of Exod. 21:2a “must” originally have been active, she contends that the nip #al verb in Deut. 15:12a could not derive from the protasis of the Covenant Code law precisely because it carries a passive meaning: “is sold” (eadem, “Relationship between the Legal Corpora,” p. 73). The nip #al formulation in Lev. 25:39a thus provides the necessary “missing link” that explains the origin of the “passive” form at Deut. 15:12a. This line of reasoning must be questioned. The semantic bifurcation—active/passive—fails to do justice to the semantic range of the nip #al stem. It is essential to distinguish between morphology (the nip #al stem) and mood (active/passive). In eﬀect, Japhet reduces the nip #al conjugation to a passive. Her denial that there can be such

the manumission of hermeneutics

287

a number of other distinctive features of Deuteronomy’s manumission law. Japhet is scrupulous never to generalize this case into a broad rule for the literary sequence of the sources; and yet, of course, precisely that generalization is implicit in her article. Another aspect of her argument is equally bold. With exquisite care, she demonstrates the evidence for the literary relationship of the three manumission laws. She thereby powerfully refutes Kaufmann’s claim for the literary independence of the biblical legal collections,17 while still retaining his pre-exilic dating of the Holiness Code. Japhet’s article broke open the log-jam.18 Whether or not the following three works depend upon her article, they share its challenge to the consensus: 1. The completion three years ago of Jacob Milgrom’s three-volume, 2,714-page long commentary on Leviticus in the Anchor Bible series is a monument to immense erudition.19 It also marks the ﬁrst real penetration into a major commentary series of the claim by Yehezkel Kaufmann that the priestly source and the Holiness Code of Leviticus date to the pre-exilic period. Building on Japhet’s analysis with additional arguments, Milgrom argues that Deuteronomy’s manumission

verbs in the main condition of a casuistic law overlooks the protasis of the law of talion: íé!Öð#à eöpéé!ëå, “When two men struggle” (Exod. 21:22). The nip #al form there expresses the reciprocal/reﬂexive idea that is the original semantic function of the conjugation; the passive represents a secondary development. Almost certainly at issue in the nip #al verb at Deut. 15:12 (and thus in Alt’s proposal for Exod. 21:2) is self-indenture: not a passive but a reﬂexive use of the stem. This problem does not simply reside in the English translation. It also exists in the Hebrew original of the article: “—éáéè÷à éáéñô úîåòì” (“active, as opposed to passive”); similarly, the casuistic main protasis must be “ãéîú éáéè÷à” (“always active”); see eadem, “Laws of Manumission,” pp. 236, 237 (Hebrew; my translation). 17 Ibid., p. 69. 18 Shortly after the original Hebrew publication of Japhet’s article in 1978, a dissertation that closely follows its assumptions was prepared under the direction of Shalom Paul: A. Levy, Aspects of Bondage and Release in the Bible: Comparative Studies of Exodus 21:2–6, Leviticus 25:25–55, Deuteronomy 15:12–18 (Doctor of Hebrew Literature diss., Jewish Theological Seminary; reprint, Ann Arbor, 1981; in Hebrew). While the dissertation shows many places where the legal formulae of the manumission laws connect to cuneiform use, its source-critical arguments do not advance beyond those already made formidably by Japhet. 19 J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (New York, 1991); idem, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York, 2000); idem, Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3B (New York, 2001).

288

bernard m. levinson

law knows and revises that of Leviticus 25.20 From the point of view of the standard European model, that approach, which places H prior to D, is tantamount to rejecting the Copernican revolution on behalf of a Ptolemaic universe.21 The analysis is accompanied by a powerful articulation of the phenomenology of ritual law that warrants the most serious attention of its readers. That does not make the dating or the proposed literary sequence correct, however, as shall be demonstrated. 2. In Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East, Gregory C. Chirichigno devotes nearly four hundred pages to a comprehensive examination of the manumission laws of the Pentateuch. At the same time, he eschews the question of their relative dating, sequence, and literary relation, “since such a task lies outside the scope of this work.”22 He maintains that the three manumission laws constitute a synchronically coherent system: the “diﬀerent dates of release reﬂected the severity of debt involved.”23 As such, diﬀerences of substantive law do not constitute evidence of historical development and do not carry legal-historical implications. There is some inconsistency in this position. Elsewhere he asserts “that there is some evidence to suggest that the law in Leviticus is earlier than that in Deuteronomy . . . ”24 He rejects any notion that “the diﬀerences that exist between these laws . . . [should be] interpreted as indicators of the historical development of these regulations.” Instead, Deuteronomy’s developments derive only from its “theological nature, and as such do not alter signiﬁcantly the meaning of the previous legislation in Exodus.”25 The analytical model employed here Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, pp. 2254–2256. Also defending the priority of the Holiness Code to Deuteronomy is J. Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17–26, VTSup 67 (Leiden, 1996). Note his self-consciousness in departing from the more commonly held European model as he dates the Holiness Code to the monarchical period: “These conclusions regarding the date of our corpus may seem hopelessly out of step with the mainstream of contemporary research” (p. 207). His focus is on articulating the conceptual system of the Holiness Code, not on systematic legal comparison as the basis for drawing diachronic conclusions. 22 G.C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East, JSOTSup 141 (Sheﬃeld, 1993), p. 344; similarly, p. 329. 23 Idem, p. 343. 24 Idem, p. 328. Astutely noting the inconsistency, see A. Schenker, “The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves: the Road from Exodus to Leviticus,” in Recht und Kult im Alten Testament: Achtzehn Studien, OBO 172 (Freiburg and Göttingen, 2000), pp. 134–149 (at 134 n. 1). 25 Idem, p. 344. 20 21

the manumission of hermeneutics

289

does not allow for there to be a history of ancient Israelite religion in which substantive institutional, social, or legal change takes place. The legal corpus of Deuteronomy, for example, has no connection with the late eighth or early seventh centuries. He denies that “the altarlaw of Deuteronomy 12 can be traced to Josiah’s or Hezekiah’s reform or that this law advocates a sole sanctuary.”26 In so doing, he aligns his position closely with that of J.G. McConville, whose work he cites extensively.27 There are no citations of the scholars who have questioned McConville’s dating of Deuteronomy to the time of the Israelite entry into the land.28 Chirichigno reaches similar basic conclusions. The manumission law of the Covenant Code dates to “the Settlement period.”29 The date of the manumission law of Deuteronomy “coincides with the present literary framework of Deuteronomy, according to which the laws in chapters 12–26 were promulgated by Moses just before Israel entered Canaan.”30 The date of the manumission legislation of Leviticus 25 should not be “inﬂuenced by the views concerning Idem, p. 296. J.G. McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, JSOTSup 33 (Sheﬃeld, 1984). Both Chirichigno and McConville completed their dissertations under the tutelage of Gordon J. Wenham. A recent dissertation directed by Prof. Wenham reaches similar results. Henning Graf Reventlow observes (review of Pekka Pitkänen, Central Sanctuary and the Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel: From the Settlement to the Building of Solomon’s Temple, Review of Biblical Literature [www.bookreviews.org; published 1/8/2005]): 26 27

This dissertation, supervised by Gordon Wenham at the University of Gloucestshire, is an attempt to reconstruct the history of the centralization of worship in premonarchical Israel on the basis of pentateuchal and other biblical texts, which also are redated against the mainstream opinion of historical-critical research. The ﬁrst impression that harmonization is one of the central intentions of the author—sometimes (e.g. 180) openly indicated (see also the recurring term “compatible”)—is conﬁrmed more and more when perusing the work. The reviewer also notes the extent of the historical-critical scholarship that is not considered. It is always important to challenge the intellectual status quo. But if the approach of what here seems to be a “school” concerned to defend the antiquity of the Pentateuch involves the harmonization of diﬃcult texts and the overlooking of important historical-critical literature, the results become predictable. 28 See the last sentence of the review by A.D.H. Mayes: “There may be much in Deuteronomy which is consistent with its self-presentation as a speech of Moses on the border of the land, but there is much that is not” (ExpT 96 [1985], pp. 370–371). Reviews raising similar concerns include A.G. Auld, Scottish Journal of Theology 39 (1986), pp. 257–258; G. Braulik, Bib 67 (1986), pp. 423–427; J. Pons, Etudes théologiques et religieuses 61 (1986), pp. 583–584; B.M. Levinson, “McConville’s Law and Theology in Deuteronomy,” JQR 80 (1990), pp. 396–404; and N. Lohﬁnk, BZ 34 (1990), pp. 122–124. 29 Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery, p. 356. 30 Ibid.

290

bernard m. levinson

the date of the Priestly Source and the Holiness Code.”31 Instead, like the legislation of Deuteronomy that dates prior to the Settlement, the laws of Leviticus 25 represent a welfare system that “could have been developed at an early stage in Israel’s legal history . . . . But they could also be dated during the Monarchic period . . . ”32 3. Of particular interest is the recent attempt by John Van Seters to argue that it is simply an entrenched bias of scholarship that the Covenant Code law is the earliest literary source.33 He maintains that it is rather Deuteronomy where the tradition begins. Then follow Jeremiah 34, H (Leviticus 25), and, ﬁnally—the Covenant Code. Under the tutelage of Van Seters, the Covenant Code does a double reverse somersault over both D and H, to land squarely on its feet in the exilic period, as the very latest of the sources. As with the Kingdom of God, so with pentateuchal theory: the ﬁrst shall become last, and the last shall become ﬁrst. In this new garb as Olympic gymnast, the Covenant Code wears unfamiliar colors. As Van Seters’s own ﬁne review of the history of scholarship makes abundantly clear, the consensus of scholarship has historically been much slower to assign the Covenant Code to the Yahwistic source. More common is to attribute it to the Elohist or to consider it as independent of the sources altogether.34 The anomaly involved in the wholesale attribution of the Covenant Code to the Yahwist becomes especially salient once it is recognized that Christoph Levin, in the context of his own plaidoyer for a late Yahwist, pointedly denies that there is any original literary connection between the Yahwist and the Covenant Code.35 Nonetheless, 31

Ibid. Ibid., p. 357, as the last sentence of the book. 33 Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, especially pp. 82–95. This work draws upon a series of earlier studies, including the one that is most relevant for the present purposes, his article on the manumission laws: idem, “The Law of the Hebrew Slave,” ZAW 108 (1996), pp. 534–546. Note also idem, “Cultic Laws in the Covenant Code and their Relationship to Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code,” in M. Vervenne (ed.), Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction—Reception—Interpretation, BETL 126 (Leuven, 1996), pp. 319– 345. This approach builds on his earlier work on narrative, which seeks to re-date the Yahwist to the post-exilic period, later than the Priestly source. To do so, he makes Deuteronomy the earliest source and eliminates the Elohist; see idem, The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville, 1994). 34 As Van Seters’s ﬁne review of the history of scholarship makes abundantly clear (Law Book for the Diaspora, pp. 8–18). 35 “Das Bundesbuch ist nicht Teil des jahwistischen Geschichtswerks gewesen, sondern nachträglich in die Sinaiperikope gelangt.” See C. Levin, “Das Deuteronomium 32

the manumission of hermeneutics

291

the teasing earlier in this paragraph bespeaks great respect, although profound disagreement. Van Seters recognizes the signal importance of the legal collections for dating the sources and properly stresses the importance of literary method. The history of scholarship on the Covenant Code in the ﬁrst chapter of A Law Book for the Diaspora makes a lasting contribution to the discipline. It oﬀers an intellectual history of the various models for thinking about biblical law, its methodology, and its connections to cuneiform law. But the ﬁnal question is whether his analysis and conclusions provide a clear explanation of the texts.36

III. Summary of the Issues and Position to be Argued The main issue in all of these approaches is whether Deuteronomy’s legal corpus continues to mediate between pre-exilic and post-exilic. If we apply a formula much heard recently in American Congressional investigations: what does Deuteronomy know and when does it know it? Does D know only the Covenant Code, as the classical model maintains? Does D also know H, as Japhet and Milgrom contend in opposition to the more standard source-critical model?37 Or is D completely innocent, as John Van Seters argues, knowing no previous Israelite legal corpus and marking instead the beginning of all subsequent Judean literary and legal history? While the importance of these questions must be emphasized, there is also a crucial gap in the existing debate. The recent work on the und der Jahwist,” in R.G. Kratz and H. Spieckermann (eds.), Liebe und Gebot: Studien zum Deuteronomium: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Lothar Perlitt, FRLANT 190 (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 121–136 (at 127); reprinted in idem, Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, BZAW 316 (Berlin and New York, 2003), pp. 96–110. See similarly the earlier statement in idem, “Der Dekalog am Sinai,” VT 35 (1985), pp. 165–191 (at 180–181). 36 There is an additional dimension to the irony just mentioned. While making arguments that parallel those of Van Seters as regards both the late date of the Yahwist and the alleged dependence of the altar law of the Covenant Code (Exod. 20:24) upon Deuteronomy 12, even Levin maintains that the manumission law of the Covenant Code was almost certainly used as a source by the author of Deuteronomy. See Levin, “Das Deuteronomium und der Jahwist,” pp. 132–133. 37 Israel Knohl also maintains the priority of the Holiness Code to Deuteronomy. Since the manumission laws do not play any signiﬁcant role in his analysis, and there is no discussion of the relation of Lev. 25:39–46 to the other pentateuchal legislation, his work is not addressed here. See idem, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis, 1995), p. 122.

292

bernard m. levinson

dating of the manumission laws pays scant attention to the narrative of Zedekiah’s manumission of slaves (Jer. 34:8–22), although that failure of manumission in the seventh year, according to the standard model, provides the essential transition between D and H, which delays manumission to the jubilee. The pivotal role of Jeremiah represents the single point of agreement between the older consensus and the challenges to it by Japhet and Milgrom on the one hand and Van Seters on the other. The chapter’s place in literary history is largely taken for granted as self-evident. That ostensible certainty should itself give pause. Conversely, where the chapter is more extensively discussed, as it is in the context of specialist work on the composition and redactional history of the book of Jeremiah, the analysis is not brought into conjunction with or informed by the current debates in pentateuchal theory. In the end, the chapter seems to “fall between the cracks.” In the space available for the current article, it is only possible to point out this issue, which is addressed elsewhere.38 This study argues the following three theses: (1) Deuteronomy’s manumission law knows and transforms that of the Covenant Code (contrary to the position of Van Seters). (2) The consensus has not yet recognized the degree to which H knows and transforms not only D but also CC. This evidence independently conﬁrms the priority of CC (also contrary to the position of Van Seters). (3) Japhet and Milgrom maintain that the D manumission law knows and reworks that of H. The evidence that they oﬀer, however, is not conclusive, and instead points to similarities in the language of D and H that do not necessarily have implications for the direction of literary dependence. Japhet and Milgrom work within the framework of a larger model that views H as prior to D. Closer examination of the manumission laws demonstrates that such a model cannot be defended. It is H that represents a radical response to, and indeed rejection of, both CC and D.

The relation of Jeremiah 34 to the pentateuchal manumission laws is the subject of one of the chapters in Rethinking Revelation and Redaction. 38

the manumission of hermeneutics

293

IV. Thesis 1: Deuteronomy’s Manumission Law Responds to the Covenant Code a. Critique of the Hypothesis of John Van Seters The reconstruction of the literary history of the manumission laws proposed by Van Seters places the Covenant Code last in the series, and sees it as lying in the reception history of Deuteronomy, the Holiness Code, and the Laws of Hammurabi. That reconstruction is problematic. The protasis of its law governing male slaves establishes a simple initial condition: éøáò ãáò äð÷ú éë, “If you purchase a Hebrew slave . . . ” (Exod. 21:2aα). That simple protasis acquires two additional conditions in the reading of Van Seters: (1) “The most obvious and direct meaning of this statement is that the person is already a slave for whatever reason and has been purchased from another owner”; and (2) “The terms of the law . . . are such that the seller could not belong to the Israelite community, because that would be contradictory and make void the law if an Israelite could sell his fellow Hebrew within the sixyear period. The seller, therefore, must be a foreigner.”39 This reading is hardly “obvious and direct.” Neither of the two additional conditions appears within the law itself. This approach embeds additional conditions into the protasis, creating a new version of the text, which then provides the basis for the proposed reconstruction of the literary sequence of the manumission laws. The premise of the ﬁrst condition is that, according to Van Seters, the law would not employ the term “slave” if the individual being purchased were a free man in the process of self-indenture. Since the law refers to the purchase of a “slave,” the subject of the law must already be a slave. While the intriguing argument has been challenged, Van Seters defends it as the plain sense of the text.40 The claim is pre39 Van Seters, “Law of the Hebrew Slave,” p. 540. This statement from the 1996 article is repeated verbatim in idem, Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 87. 40 Sharply challenging Van Seters on this point, describing the text as a speech act or as analogous to formulations like, “The president was elected,” see E. Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien, BZAW 284 (Berlin, 1999), pp. 303–311. Otto challenges Van Seters’s reading of Exod. 21:2 (“Hebrew Slave”) at p. 305 n. 451. He repeats and extends that challenge, at points verbatim, in his “Exkurs: Das Deuteronomium als Quelle des Bundesbuches? Zu einer These von John Van Seters,” in Gottes Recht als Menschenrecht: Rechts- und literaturhistorische Studien zum Deuteronomium, BZAR 2 (Wiesbaden, 2002), pp. 20–24. Van Seters responds to the challenge (Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 191 n. 28; and p. 193 n. 54). The debate between

294

bernard m. levinson

sented as linguistically self-evident; actual linguistic and textual support is therefore not provided. Consulting the history of interpretation might have helped contextualize such a strong rejection of standard ways of reading the protasis. Ironically, by reading additional conditions into the legal protasis and claiming them as implicit, Van Seters argues in a manner that recalls rabbinic midrashic hermeneutics, where a like proposal was earlier discussed.41 While in purely grammatical terms the hypothesis is certainly possible, it is far from a necessary reading, let alone the most obvious one. Van Seters goes beyond the evidence— linguistic, textual, and comparative—in restricting the meaning of the protasis to the purchase of someone who is already a slave. To the contrary, in Hebrew and Akkadian, when a legal status or title is at issue, the term is used proleptically.42 This is particularly true in formal or contractual contexts. The semantic issue overlooked by Van Seters is that the technical use of the verb deﬁnes the legal status of its grammatical object.43 the two of them does not allow for resolution in its present terms. Neither adduces textual evidence; each seems simply to restate his position. 41 Tannaitic midrashic exegesis read the phrase éøáò ãáò as do moderns: as an absolute noun with an accompanying attributive adjective: “a Hebrew slave.” While discussing the law’s application (whether it applied to Jews or non-Jews; the nature of the slavery involved, etc.), however, the text entertains the possibility that the phrase might be construed as a construct (as is morphologically possible). In that case, the gentilic adjective would become the nomen rectum. Thus construed, the biblical idiom is then “translated” into the syntax of Rabbinic Hebrew as: éøáò ìù åãáò, “the slave of a Hebrew” or, literally, “his slave: [namely, one] belonging to a Hebrew.” (To express a genitive, Rabbinic Hebrew prefers this construction, using the anticipatory pronominal suﬃx plus a relative clause, over the classical biblical construct). Here the protasis would apply to someone already a slave prior to purchase. In the rabbinic understanding, the slave addressed by the law would be a “Canaanite slave”: a non-Israelite held by an Israelite owner. As a consequence, sabbatical and other legislation associated with manumission would then also apply to non-Israelites. This analysis of the protasis is rejected. For convenient text and translation, see J.Z. Lauterbach, Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1935), 3.3. 42 On the proleptic designation of the slave, see N.P. Lemche, “ ‘The Hebrew Slave’: Comments on the Slave Law Ex. xxi 2–11,” VT 25 (1975), pp. 129–144 (135); and especially Åke Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament, CB 34 (Stockholm, 1992), p. 84: The fact that the text of Exod 21:2 states that a slave was bought does not necessarily mean that the person was a slave before the so-called purchase. It should most likely be considered as a case of prolepsis, where the status to which the person is transferred is used by the author to describe him even before he became a slave. 43

For example, when the elders of Israel approach Samuel in Ramah, they appeal

the manumission of hermeneutics

295

As regards the second condition, the question of native versus foreign is nowhere raised within this law (vv. 2–6). Whenever that issue is relevant for the case at hand, the legist is perfectly capable of raising it explicitly, just as in the following law (Exod. 21:7–11, at v. 8). Moreover, the expectation that the law would be self-contradictory if the seller to him: “Appoint a king for us, to rule over us, like all the other nations” (2 Sam. 8:5). Using the semantic analysis of Van Seters, “The most obvious and direct meaning of this statement is that the person is already a” king. Of course that is not possible. The individual whom Samuel is to appoint, by deﬁnition, cannot previously have been a monarch or even a member of any dynastic line. The whole point of the narrative is that Israel has not yet had a king. Nor would the individual actually become a king until formally anointed into oﬃce. The same issue of proleptic designation applies to the similar formulation at Deut. 17:15. The verbal action of appointing is what designates the legal change of status from individual citizen to monarch. The same semantic issue applies to the protasis of the manumission law. The verb designates the “purchase” that eﬀects the change of legal status from free to “slave.” The contractual language that is used for marriage provides an even closer analogy. The formulation, äÖ@#ç äg!à Öé!à çwéé!k, can only mean “When a man has taken a new wife” (Deut. 24:5). The protasis does not imply that the woman in question was a wife prior to the new marriage. Rather, the verb deﬁnes a change of legal status. “To take,” which implies consummation, deﬁnes the legal act whereby the woman becomes formally a “wife.” The analogy with the formulation of the protasis of the manumission law, ãáò äðO!ú é!k éX"á!ò (Exod. 21:2) should here be obvious. Recourse to cuneiform law conﬁrms this analysis. The Laws of Hammurabi (LH) § 128 deﬁnes marriage in contractual terms and directly reﬂects on the rules governing legal terminology: sˇumma aw¯ılum aˇssˇatam ¯ıhuzma riks¯atiˇsa la iˇskun sinniˇstum sˇî ul aˇssˇat, “If a man marries a wife but does not draw˘ up a formal contract for her, she is not a wife.” (See M. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopatamia and Asia Minor, 2d ed., SBLWAW 6 [Atlanta, 1987], p. 104.) Unlike Hebrew, Akkadian lexically distinguishes between the descriptive gender term, aˇssˇatum, for “woman,” and the legal status of sinniˇstum, “wife.” Yet the female speciﬁed in the law’s protasis, given the technical use of the verb, is proleptically deﬁned as the man’s legal sinniˇstum, “wife.” The hypothesis proposed by Van Seters for Exod. 21:2 would require this woman to have already been a wife (and then also, by implication, someone else’s wife). Rather, the woman is deﬁned as a legal wife through the contractual assumptions of the protasis. If there is consummation but no contract, there is no legal marriage and the woman’s status reverts to aˇssˇatum. The protasis here establishes the legal condition using contractual language. Similar assumptions are evident in LH §7, where the protasis postulates a purchase agreement, and whose apodosis speciﬁes that the condition of a legal purchase is a valid contract. Without such a contract, the proleptic language of “purchase” used in the protasis is redeﬁned to designate the purchaser as instead sˇarr¯aq, “a thief,” and, as such, subject to capital punishment. Ironically, Van Seters might have actually made a more successful argument to defend his position in light of LH §§ 278– 280. There, however, the premise of the laws is the legal principle of restoration of the status quo ante. That same principle applies to Exod. 21:2–7. The slave concludes indenture with the same legal status as he entered it (so Exod. 21:3); he must therefore have entered as he is to exit: éùôçì, “free.” See B.M. Levinson, “The ‘Eﬀected Object’ in Contractual Legal Language: The Semantics of ‘If You Purchase a Hebrew Slave’ (Exod. xxi 2),” VT 56 (2006), in press.

296

bernard m. levinson

were an Israelite is unjustiﬁed. The Covenant Code contains no such restriction. There is a law, for example, that a man must be sold as a slave if he is convicted of burglary but unable to pay his ﬁne (Exod. 22:2b). According to the model proposed by Van Seters, this penalty here should have further speciﬁed that the man who is to be sold into wage slavery to repay his debt may only be sold to a foreigner. Of course, there is no such speciﬁcation. Implicitly, it would be to someone in the community. The Covenant Code envisages no restrictions on Israelites holding other Israelites as slaves. On immanent grounds, there is no reason to restrict the protasis of the male slave law in the ways that Van Seters attempts. That raises another issue. The only basis for claiming that an Israelite cannot hold an Israelite as a slave is the prohibition found in the Holiness Code (Lev. 25:39–46), as Van Seters had discussed just previously.44 But if the explanation of the protasis of the manumission law of the Covenant Code is controlled by the distinctive requirements of the Holiness Code, then the priority of the Holiness Code to the Covenant Code is assumed a priori. With that assumption, the late date of the Covenant Code becomes a foregone conclusion. The analysis is circular, since the exposition of the text embeds the literary-historical conclusion. Van Seters also oﬀers a distinctive reading of the law governing female slaves in the Covenant Code. He begins with an analysis of its initial apodosis: “She shall not go free as male slaves do” (Exod. 21:7). “It seems to me that if one considers this part of the law without the prejudice of the Covenant Code’s priority, then it seems so obviously to be a qualiﬁcation of the statement in Deut. 15:17b: ‘You are to do the same for your female slave’.”45 Van Seters rejects as mere prejudice the more standard view that the Covenant Code’s insistence upon a separate protocol for female slaves responds to and rejects what immediately precedes it, the protocol for male slaves (Exod. 21:2–7).46 Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 84. Ibid., p. 90. 46 Challenging Van Seters on this point, see B.S. Jackson, “Revolution in Biblical Law: Some Reﬂections on the Role of Theory in Methodology,” JSS 50 (2005), pp. 83– 116. Elsewhere Jackson articulates the structural relationship between the two slavery paragraphs of the Covenant Code and explains the legal rationale for distinct protocols based upon gender. See idem, “Some Literary Features of the Mishpatim,” in M. Augustin and K.-D. Schunck (eds.), Wünschet Jerusalem Frieden: Collected Communications to the XIIth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Jerusalem 1986, Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Juden44 45

the manumission of hermeneutics

297

Figure 1. The Interlocking Structure of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Laws47

Once again, the analysis seems driven by the assumption of priority of Deuteronomy to the Covenant Code. While it is important to be open to rethinking existing models, in this case, the alternative argument overlooks the extent to which the law governing manumission for male slaves in the Covenant Code (Exod. 21:2–6) interlocks with the law for female slaves (Exod. 21:7–11). As Figure 1 above demonstrates, in their syntax and structure the two laws cohere as a literary and conceptual unity.48 The reconstruction by Van Seters of the manumission law of Deuteronomy is equally diﬃcult to follow. Asserting that it is “the most straightforward and easiest of the three versions to treat,” Van Seters tums 13 (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 235–242; idem, “Biblical Laws of Slavery: A Comparative Approach,” in L. Archer (ed.), Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labor (London and New York, 1988), pp. 86–101 (pp. 93–94); idem, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law, JSOTSup 314 (Sheﬃeld, 2000), pp. 193–197; and idem, Wisdom-Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16 (Oxford, 2006), ch.3 (in press). 47 Here and elsewhere, vocalized citations of the Old Testament in Hebrew employ Hebrew Scriptures for Windows © 1993–1999 Payne Loving Trust. The Septuagint is cited according to Greek Old Testament for Windows version 2.3 © 1992–1997 Payne Loving Trust. The fonts Hebraica II, New Jerusalem, and Symbol Greek II are available from Linguist’s Software, Inc., P.O. Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020–0580, www.linguistsoftware.com. The font Bwhebb is copyright 1994–2002 BibleWorks, LLC, P.O. Box 6158, Norfolk, VA 23508. 48 Figure 1 builds on the valuable model provided by Lohﬁnk, “Fortschreibung” (n. 3 above), p. 188. For further analysis of the binary legal logic and the legal syntax, see Levinson and Zahn, “Revelation Regained” (n. 13 above), pp. 314–315.

298

bernard m. levinson

Figure 2. Van Seters’s Translation of Deuteronomy’s Manumission Law (Deut. 15:12–18)

places the law at the beginning of the literary history of the biblical slave laws.49 He sees it as corresponding closely to the “parallel legal and social situation” found in the Laws of Hammurabi § 117.50 This analogy is important to his analysis: “As Babylonian law makes quite clear, there is no reason to distinguish between male and female because the law has in mind temporary service as the rule.”51 These arguments for the simplicity of the law and the origin of its gender inclusiveness in the alleged precedent of cuneiform law are critical to his attempt to mitigate and reject the inﬂuence of the Covenant Code upon this law. There are some diﬃculties with this approach. First, it becomes diﬃcult to anticipate just when and where the inﬂuence of the Laws of Hammurabi upon the Covenant Code will either be aﬃrmed as the primary literary model employed by its Yahwistic author, as elsewhere, or denied altogether and used instead to account for the legal assumptions of Deuteronomy, as in this case.52 In the absence 49 50 51 52

Van Seters, “Law of the Hebrew Slave,” p. 535 = Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 83. Van Seters, “Law of the Hebrew Slave,” p. 535 = Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 83. Van Seters, “Law of the Hebrew Slave,” p. 536 = Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 83. More normally, Van Seters emphasizes the extent to which the author of the

the manumission of hermeneutics

299

of a larger literary-historical rationale that would lend predictability or consistency for claiming or denying the inﬂuence of cuneiform law upon the Covenant Code, the system seems rather ad hoc.53 Second, although the description of the law as “straightforward” works for the English translation, it leaves distinctive features of the Hebrew text unexplained. They emerge neither in the translation provided nor in the discussion of the law’s formulation and content. Figure 2 above reproduces Van Seters’s translation of Deuteronomy’s manumission law.54 The subject of the law in verse 12 has a compound modiﬁer to emphasize that the law is gender-inclusive in its application: éøáòä êéçà äéøáòä åà. Given that gender-inclusive point of departure, it is unclear why verse 17b stipulates the same point: ïë äùòú êúîàì óàå. That insistence upon a single protocol for both at this point should have been unnecessary, since the protasis has already speciﬁed that the law applies to both male and female Hebrews. Moreover, at least in the Hebrew, the ostensible redundancy begins with a rhetorically emphatic construction that seems contextually out of place. First, the casus pendens fronts the object of the verb, to draw attention to the focus upon the female slave. Second, the particle, óàå, is used to introduce and emphasize the extension of the previous protocol so that it includes the female slave. The use of the emphatic particle in this context Covenant Code used Hammurabi’s Code as a direct literary model for the casuistic laws (Law Book for the Diaspora, pp. 45, 56–57, 95–99, 125–127, 173–175). Indeed, “For J, Moses is the Jewish Hammurabi” (p. 57). Given that primary literary inﬂuence upon the casuistic laws of the Covenant Code, for the very ﬁrst of those laws, the law of manumission, to “stand outside the rest of the casuistic corpus because it owes nothing directly to the Hammurabi Code” (p. 99) calls attention to itself as an anomaly within the explanatory model. In fairness, Van Seters attempts to address this issue and points it out himself, stressing that the Yahwist was free to draw upon all of the legal sources at his disposal, including D, H, and Hammurabi (p. 125). 53 Making a similar point about the lack of economy in the explanatory model, see D.P. Wright, Review of A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code, by John Van Seters, JAOS 124 (2004), pp. 129–131. Note also his systematic analysis of the literary inﬂuence of Hammurabi’s Code upon the Covenant Code, arguing for the Neo-Assyrian period as the most logical context to account for this inﬂuence: idem, “The Laws of Hammurabi as a Source for the Covenant Collection (Exodus 20:23– 23:19),” MAARAV 10 (2003), pp. 11–87. 54 Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 85. The tabular presentation and alignment with the MT for comparative purposes are mine. Making a similar point that “Van Seters takes no account of awkwardness in the language” of Deut. 15:17b, see Jackson, “Revolution in Biblical Law,” pp. 83–116. Jackson draws valuable attention to similar features in comparative legal history.

300

bernard m. levinson

calls attention to itself: it occurs nowhere else in the entire corpus of biblical law.55 “[T]he function of the particle unmistakably lies in adding something new to what precedes, precisely in the same manner as the Aramaic and Ugaritic equivalents.”56 In the rather ﬂat translation oﬀered by Van Seters of the Hebrew clause (ïë äùòú êúîàì óàå)—“You are to do the same for your female slave”—both the inverted syntax and the additive particle disappear.57 So, too, the rhetorical force of the text. The doubly-marked emphasis suggests that the extension of the law to the female slave is so contrary to expectation that the legist must insist upon it: “Even for your female slave must you do likewise!” The power of the formulation in v. 17b emerges diachronically.58 The annotation directly engages the lemma of the Covenant Code’s law for female slaves, even using its speciﬁc term for the female slave (äîà), in order to reject that legal protocol. Both in its literary struc55 The particle óà occurs 121 times in the Old Testament (including óàå and the form with interrogative h). None of the other attestations is found within biblical law or a conventional legal statement. The eight citations in Leviticus 26, as the concluding chapter of the Holiness Code, reinforce this point. They do not occur in an actual law but in a rhetorical context, the ﬁrst-person divine speech of God, as an intensiﬁer, as he describes the sanctions for breach of the covenant. Perhaps the closest analogy to the case at hand (Deut. 15:17b) is the divine insistence that the survivors shall languish because of their own iniquities but also (óàå) because of the iniquities of their ancestors (Lev. 25:39). In both cases, the syntactical structure is: óàå +preposition +noun/construct phrase with pronominal suﬃx+imperfect verb. The invocation of trans-generational punishment here represents an escalation and intensiﬁcation. The particle rhetorically stresses the extension of the action in the preceding clause to an otherwise unexpected recipient. The particle in Deut. 15:7b seems to function similarly. (The full list of citations follows: Gen. 3:1; 18:13, 23, 24; 40:16; Lev. 26:16, 24, 28, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44; Num. 16:14; Deut. 2:11, 20; 15:17; 31:27; 33:3, 20, 28; Judg. 5:29; 1Sam. 2:7; 14:30; 21:6; 23:3; 2 Sam. 4:11; 16:11; 20:14; 1Kgs. 8:27; 2 Kgs. 2:14; 5:13; Isa. 26:8, 9, 11; 33:2; 35:2; 40:24; 41:10, 23, 26; 42:13; 43:7, 19; 44:15–16, 19; 45:21; 46:7, 11; 48:12, 13, 15; Ezek. 14:21; 15:5; 23:40; Amos 2:11; Hab. 2:5, 15; Ps. 16:6, 7, 9; 18:49; 44:10; 58:3; 65:14; 68:9, 17, 19; 74:16; 77:17, 18; 89:6, 12, 22, 28, 44; 93:1; 96:10; 108:2; 119:3; 135:17; Job 4:19; 6:27; 9:14; 14:3; 15:4, 16; 19:4; 25:6; 32:10, 17; 34:12, 17; 35:14; 36:16, 29; 37:1, 11; 40:8; Prov. 9:2; 11:31; 15:11; 17:7; 19:7, 10; 21:27; 22:19; 23:28; Cant. 1:16; Eccl. 2:9; Esth. 5:12; Neh. 2:18; 9:18; 13:15; 1Chr. 8:32; 9:38; 16:30; 2 Chr. 6:18; 12:5; 32:15.) 56 T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew ( Jerusalem and Leiden, 1985), p. 141. 57 Van Seters, Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 85. 58 The formulation of Deut. 15:17b represents a variation of the more standard formula for drawing an exegetical analogy, äùòú ïë. On the latter formula and its uses, see M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1988), pp. 177–184. I disagree, however, with Fishbane’s analysis of Deuteronomy’s manumission law. He regards those parts of the text addressing the female slave (the reference in the protasis of v. 12; as well as 15:17b) as interpolations to an original text centered only on the male

the manumission of hermeneutics

301

ture and in its content, the Covenant Code insists upon separate protocols for male and female slaves: àöú àì äîàì åúá úà ùéà øëîé éëå íéãáòä úàöë, “If a man should sell his daughter as a slave, she must not go out like male slaves do” (Exod. 21:7). This apodosis is less a direct statement of the law than a reﬂection upon legal procedure. It denies any analogy between the preceding manumission protocol, elaborated for males (Exod. 21:2–6), and what should apply to female slaves (vv. 7–11). That insistence upon separate protocols based upon gender is pointedly rejected by Deuteronomy’s manumission law: êúîàì óàå ïë äùòú, “Even with respect to your female slave, you must do likewise” (Deut. 15:17b). The formal exegetical analogy here responds to that of the Covenant Code. At issue is an innovation in the law that is only intelligible as a conscious revision of a legal and textual precedent. b. Deuteronomy’s Revision of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law Deuteronomy’s manumission law revises the corresponding law of the Covenant Code in regard to (1) gender protocols, (2) religious assumptions, and (3) in emphasizing the dignity of the slave. First, whereas the Covenant Code has two separate laws concerned with manumission, one for male slaves and another for female slaves, Deuteronomy folds both laws into a single law. The Covenant Code’s genderspeciﬁc formulation, éøáò ãáò, “[male] Hebrew slave” (Exod. 21:2) becomes Deuteronomy’s gender-inclusive “male or female Hebrew” (Deut. 15:12). This gender inclusiveness represents a conscious revision of a textual tradition that was originally oriented to the male slave alone, as is clear from the Hebrew: äéøáòä åà éøáòä êéçà êì øëîé éë (Deut. 15:12a). The NRSV makes the syntax and grammar consistent and intelligible but at the expense of the hermeneutical richness of the text, as it inserts a gender-inclusive term right at the beginning of its translation: “If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or

slave (p. 211 n. 99). Fishbane is troubled that v. 18a returns to the male reference, and does not directly continue v. 17b. While removing the ostensibly intrusive matter creates a grammatically more consistent text, that approach overlooks the revisionist intent of the law as a whole, whose larger coherence lies in its concern to revise the protocols of Exod. 21:2–6, 7–11. Fishbane’s approach allows that intent only to operate in the secondary expansion. In so doing, he separates the revision of gender protocols from the extent to which the rest of the law also extensively revises its source.

302

bernard m. levinson

a Hebrew woman” (Deut. 15:12a).59 More accurate, and more clearly reﬂecting the revisionist goals of the text’s authors, would be: “If your brother, whether a male-Hebrew or a female-Hebrew, sells himself to you . . . ” The asymmetry, whereby the gender-speciﬁc term “brother,” in the singular, carries a gender-inclusive compound modiﬁer, only highlights the gap between the perspective of the law’s author and the received tradition that is here engaged. The transformation of legal precedent is the entire point of the law and gives it its coherence.60 The phrase reveals the intentionality of the text’s author. The gap between the author’s revisionist perspective and the perspective of his sources is also clear from the continuation of the law, which retains the masculine focus of the older source, until the very end of the law.61 The literary matrix provided by the Covenant Code’s manumission law also accounts for the contextual intrusiveness of the emphatic formulation in Deut. 15:17b. Read purely synchronically, that annotation 59 See W.A. Meeks et al. (eds.), The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, NRSV text, 1989 (San Francisco, 1993), p. 293. 60 “The addition ‘or an Hebrewess’ in Dt. 1512 is also a pointed one, which would hardly have been made, unless some material modiﬁcation of the law of Ex. had been intended by it.” So, incisively, S.R. Driver, Deuteronomy, ICC, 3d ed. (Edinburgh, 1901), p. 182. Similarly in the most recent commentary: “Die breite Formulierung . . . ist als eine bewusste dtn Erweiterung der Vorlage (Ex 21,2) anzusehen, weshalb kein Anlass besteht, deren zweiten Teil (‘oder eine Hebräerin’) als sekundär zu beseitigen.” See T. Veijola, Das 5. Buch Mose: Deuteronomium, ATD 8.1 (Göttingen, 2004), p. 319. 61 The reconstructions of Deut. 15:12a that remove “or a female Hebrew” from the protasis as secondary are untenable. They miss the intentionality of the pointed comment, which is one of the main points of the law as a whole. Scholars make the deletion for one or both of the following two reasons: (a) the verse’s syntactical inconsistency; (b) with reference to the formulation of Jer. 34:14a, where the ostensible citation of this law refers only to the male slave. However, that ostensible citation more likely represents simpliﬁcation of the formulation in Deuteronomy rather than a basis for reconstructing any Vorlage. Moreover, the fact that the author of Jer. 34:14a is interpreting Deuteronomic law and reformulating it rather than preserving any possible actual source is also clear from the very beginning of the verse, which exegetically joins the time formula for remission of debts in the sabbatical, “At the end of seven years” (Deut. 15:1), to the continuation of the manumission law (Deut. 15:12). At issue here is something much closer to midrash halakha than the preservation of any earlier form of the Deuteronomic text. Contra M. David, “The Manumission of Slaves under Zedekiah,” OTS 5 (1948), pp. 63– 79 (at pp. 72–73); R.P. Merendino, Das deuteronomische Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungsund überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Dt 12–26, BBB 31 (Bonn, 1969), p. 113 (deleting the reference to both male and female); I. Cardellini, Die biblischen “Sklaven”-Gesetze im Lichte des keilschriftlichen Sklavenrechts: Ein Beitrag zur Tradition, Überlieferung und Redaktion der alttestamentlichen Rechtstexte, BBB 55 (Königstein, 1981), pp. 272–276, 318; M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1988), p. 211 n. 99; here overlooking

the manumission of hermeneutics

303

does not ﬁt its context: as already noted, it would seem superﬂuous given the law’s protasis, which is already gender inclusive (v. 12). Moreover, the continuation of the law following the annotation (v. 18), with the homiletic appeal and the motive clause, takes no note of the reference to the female slave; it reverts to the masculine singular focus of vv. 12–17a. But read diachronically in comparison with the literary structure of the Covenant Code, with its sequence of two laws, one for male and one for female slaves, the rationale and contextual function become clear. Deuteronomy’s gender annotation (v. 17b) immediately follows the procedure whereby the male slave may elect to become “a permanent slave” (íìåò ãáò; v. 17a). That is precisely the sequence of the two laws in the Covenant Code. The law for male slaves concludes with the ritual at the local sanctuary whereby the slave, after swearing an oath, may serve his master permanently (íìòì åãáòå; Exod. 21:6). What follows immediately is the law that insists upon the separate procedures necessary for female slaves (Exod. 21:7). Structurally, that is the very point at which—just after the procedure for permanent indenture, and where the separate law for female slaves would be expected based upon the Covenant Code model—Deuteronomy directly rejects the Covenant Code precedent and insists upon a single procedure for both genders. The annotation in v. 17b thus structurally replaces and displaces the Covenant Code’s law for female slaves. It establishes a “null set” where the separate female slave law would be expected. Deuteronomy then quickly brings its treatment of manumission to a conclusion.62 The ﬁnal verse of the law (v. 18) includes an appeal to conscience introduced by a partial inclusio of the beginning of the law (v. 12) and a compound motive clause, oﬀering both an economic and a theological rationale for manumission. Second, in light of the Deuteronomic program of cultic centralization, the venue of the ceremony by which the slave renounces his right

the signiﬁcance of his astute analysis, S. Chavel, “ ‘Let My People Go!’ Emancipation, Revelation, and Scribal Activity in Jeremiah 34:8–14,” JSOT 76 (1997), pp. 71–95 (at pp. 90–91); and S. Lal Wijesinghe, Jeremiah 34,8–22: Structure, and Redactional History of the Masoretic Text and of the Septuagint Hebrew Vorlage, Logos 37.1–2 (Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1999), p. 92. 62 In his otherwise very astute analysis of the manumission law, Lohﬁnk overlooks the signiﬁcance of this annotation and does not discuss Deut. 15:17b at all. The larger perspective that he brings, however, is very much on target: “Die zweite Hälfte der Bundesbuchvorlage ist ausgelassen, mit massiven Konsequenzen für die Aussage des Gesetzes selbst” (“Fortschreibung” [n. 3 above], p. 190).

304

bernard m. levinson

to manumission is shifted. In CC, the change of status ceremony must take place in a liminal space: íéäìàä ìà, “before God,” in the gateway (úìãä) of the local sanctuary (Exod. 21:6).63 Under D’s program, which proscribed such local sanctuaries as no longer legitimate, that procedure in eﬀect is secularized, so that the ear is pierced now against the doorway (úìãáå) of the private home (Deut. 15:17). Third, D reworks the CC law to emphasize the dignity and agency of the slave. It avoids referring to the Israelite slave as an ãáò, using the term only in the case where the right to manumission is forfeited (Deut. 15:16–17a), whereby the slave becomes technically an íìåò ãáò, “perpetual slave.”64 But the converse is also true: the term ïåãà, “master,” which occurs ﬁve times in Exod. 21:2–6, is completely absent from Deut. 15:12–18.65 In the protasis of Deuteronomy’s manumission law, the law’s subject is no longer a chattel subject to purchase: ãáò äð÷ú éë éøáò, “If you buy a Hebrew slave” (Exod. 21:2). Instead, the subject is transformed into êéçà, “your kinsman.” The latter indentures himself or herself and thus acts autonomously: åà éøáòä êéçà êì øëîé éë äéøáòä, “If your Hebrew kinsman sells himself to you, whether male or female . . . ” (Deut. 15:12). The new formulation, accomplished by technical reworking, realigns the language of the Covenant Code’s manumission law and brings it into conformity with Deuteronomy’s concentration on the çà as fellow Israelite.66

63 The older view that household deities are at issue, which has also been argued on the basis of Nuzi material, is unlikely in light of the evidence of the cuneiform legal collections, and the technical use of the corresponding Akkadian formula to denote a judicial oath. See Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation, pp. 111–112. 64 Noted by Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, p. 2256. 65 M. Weinfeld notes that the use of the term, with the attendant idea of a “Master/Slave” relationship, conﬂicts with the “brother” ethos of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School [Oxford, 1972], p. 283). Lohﬁnk is particularly alert to the signiﬁcance of the rejection of the term as pointing to the intentionality of the literary reworking. He shows that the term is attested elsewhere in the legal corpus (Deut. 23:16) and was therefore at hand in the author’s vocabulary. The non-attestation speciﬁcally in the context of Deut. 15:12–18 points to the author’s conscious suppression of it from the source in his reworking of the law (“Fortschreibung,” p. 194). 66 See Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, pp. 2252–2253.

the manumission of hermeneutics

305

V. Thesis 2: The Holiness Code Revises the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law If D represents a substantial revision of the CC institution of slavery, H goes even further.67 It rejects both the institution and the very language of slavery. Both CC and D use the substantive ãáò, “slave,” and each describes the work of the slave by using the verb ãáò transitively with an object suﬃx: íìòì åãáòå, “and he shall serve him perpetually” (Exod. 21:6); and íéðù ùù êãáòå, “and he shall serve you for six years” (Deut. 15:12).68 In contrast, H rejects outright the possibility that an Israelite could ever serve as a slave. The negative apodosis of the law calls attention to itself: ãáò úãáò åá ãáòú àì êì øëîðå êîò êéçà êåîé éëå

If your fellow Israelite becomes impoverished and sells himself to you, you must not make him perform the work of a slave. (Lev. 25:39)

H never describes the indentured Israelite as an ãáò. Instead, H rejects the very language of slavery. It avoids the transitive verb ãáò + object suﬃx, “to serve (someone)” and replaces it with the distinctive causative formulation -á + ãáò, “to enslave” (Lev. 25:39, 46).69 In both of those 67 Milgrom (Leviticus 23–27, pp. 2254–2256) identiﬁes a number of points where H revises the Covenant Code’s manumission law. However, he sees that revision taking place prior to and without any inﬂuence from D which, he maintains, in turn revises H. In my analysis, H responds to both CC and D. 68 Note however that D sharply restricts the use of the substantive ãáò to two contexts: (a) the formula for permanent indenture, íìåò ãáò, “perpetual slave” (Deut. 15:17a); (b) the motive clause given manumission, “for you were a slave in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 15:15). In its restricted use of the substantive, Deuteronomy never refers to the normal contractual laborer as a “slave”: it rejects that terminology and that association. It already construes the relationship as self-indenture, whereby the Israelite maintains his or her autonomy, and is not reduced to the status of chattel or commodity. Deuteronomy’s appeal to conscience and to salvation history in the motive clause (v. 15) is theologically elaborated by the powerful aﬃrmation of the Holiness Code, “For my slaves are they” (Lev. 25:42). It now justiﬁes a complete rejection of slavery as an institution that can legitimately apply to Israel. 69 The use here must be distinguished from the bet pretii, which is also found with the same verb. In the latter construction, the preposition indicates the price, literal or metaphorical, for which a person works (Gen. 29:18, 20, 25; cf. 30:26; 31:41; Hos. 12:13 [12]; Ezek. 29:20). In this case, there is a diﬀerent construction that is distinctive. The combination of qal verb with prepositional b becomes functionally a causative, semantically equivalent to the hip #il form of the same verb. It means “to make to work” or, with a human subject, “to enslave” (see Exod. 1:14; Lev. 25:39, 46; Deut. 15:19;

306

bernard m. levinson

cases, at issue are prohibitions addressed to the owner. Even when prescribing the length of time for which an indentured Israelite could labor, he avoids portraying this work as serving a master, as in D (êãáòå íéðù ùù, “six years shall he serve you”). The author of the Holiness Code rejects even the syntax of slavery, breaking the accusative construction and substituting a prepositional formulation whereby the laborer maintains his autonomy: êîò ãáòé ìáéä úðù ãò, “until the year of the jubilee shall he serve with you” (Lev. 25:40). H’s rejection of the CC and D terminology of slavery with reference to the Israelite slave is underscored by its reapplication of this language to the foreigner, who alone may be enslaved. Both the initial protasis of the CC law and its formula for permanent indenture are reused in the second section of the Holiness Code’s law (vv. 44–46). Figure 3 below demonstrates the textual reworking that permits Leviticus 25 to restrict the purchase, ownership, and inheritance of slaves to the category of foreigners. The author of Leviticus 25 here cites, summarizes, and revises the older Covenant Code law in a legal abstract. In the process, it is lemmatically reworked in such a way that it is now valid only for “the nations who are round about you” (Lev. 25:44).70 The abstract includes key terms from both the protasis (A/A), which deﬁnes the purchase condition, and the ﬁnal clause of the law (B/B), which speciﬁes the procedure for permanent indenture (Exod. 21: 2, 6). By citing the law at the two critical points of its beginning and conclusion, the law as a whole is bracketed and referenced. 21:3 [pu #al]; Isa. 14:3 [pu #al]; Jer. 22:13; 25:14; 27:7; 30:8; 34:9–10; Ezek. 34:27). Clearly recognizing the two distinct uses and providing further literature, see H. Ringgren et al., s.v. “ãáò #¯abad,” TWAT 5 (1986), pp. 982–1011 (pp. 988–989) = TDOT 10 (1999), pp. 376–405 (at p. 382). See also A.W. Streane, The Double Text of Jeremiah (Massoretic and Alexandrian) Compared Together with an Appendix on the Old Latin Evidence (Cambridge and London, 1896), p. 182. Once this issue is recognized, it begins to help clarify some of the diﬃculties in the reception of MT Jer. 34:9–10, which is the subject of a separate study. This key semantic issue was surprisingly overlooked by Ingrid Riesener, Der Stamm ãáò im Alten Testament: Eine Wortuntersuchung unter Berücksichtigung neuerer sprachwissenschaftlicher Methoden, BZAW 149 (Berlin and New York, 1979). 70 The reapplication of the older law to the non-Israelite population is distinguished by the use of the second-person plural (Lev. 25:44b–46bα). Verse 44a, in the singular, provides a transition from the preceding verse, which is also singular. The reference to äîàå ãáò, the male slave and the female slave (Lev. 25:44b), remain in the singular form, which in each case indicates the class. The singular absolute tags the legal subjects of the two manumission laws in the Covenant Code that govern the ãáò (Exod. 21:2–6) and the äîà (Exod. 21:7–11) respectively.

the manumission of hermeneutics

307

Figure 3. The Holiness Code’s Citation and Restriction to the Foreigner of the Covenant Code’s Slave Law

In reworking the Covenant Code’s manumission law, the Holiness Code cites its protasis, éøáò ãáò äð÷ú éë, “If you purchase a male Hebrew slave” (Exod. 21:2). The key terms are cited and the verb is pluralized: äîàå ãáò åð÷ú íäî, “[Only] from them may you purchase a male slave or a female slave” (Lev. 25:44). The citation strategically suppresses the nisbe, “Hebrew,” since the point is to deny that Israelites can be slaves. It also extends the protasis to make it gender inclusive, thus embedding the egalitarian perspective of Deut. 15:12 and 17b. The reference to the äîà also lexically tags the female slave law of the Covenant Code (Exod. 21:7–11). This term is absent in Deuteronomy’s version and could only have come from the Covenant Code version. The casus pendens fronts the anaphoric demonstrative pronoun íäî to the reworked lemma. This formulation seems prolix and syntactically awkward.71 Nonethe71 Milgrom describes “[t]he otherwise unbalancing and superﬂuous m¯ehem tiqnû lays stress on ‘from them’ (the non-Israelites), implying but not from Israelites” (Leviticus 23– 26, p. 2228). On the next page, he repeats this analysis but adds that the same word “is also required for the chiastic structure.” The analysis of the awkwardness of the syntax and of its function in making a sharp distinction between two sets of legal protocol is astute (on the latter point, see also Ibn Ezra ad loc.). However, the suggestion that the word was added simply to complete a chiasm suggests Milgrom’s own awkwardness with so forced an explanation. The technical use of the word to gloss and redeﬁne the

308

bernard m. levinson

less it has a speciﬁc exegetical function. The anaphoric pronoun functions technically as an asyndetic gloss to its lemma. The annotation restricts the original law so that the slave purchase may now be made only “from them”—meaning “the peoples who are round about you,” which immediately precedes (Lev. 25:44). The gloss gives the lemma a completely new application, at odds with its original intent, and that now precludes its application to Israelites. The Covenant Code’s slave law henceforth regulates the purchase of foreign, not native, slaves. Just as the protasis of the Covenant Code’s manumission law is reworked, so also is the law’s conclusion. The latter describes the procedure whereby the male slave can surrender the right to manumission in a judicial oath that the slave swears before his master at the local sanctuary (Exod. 21:5). That oath and the ensuing ritual provide the means for the change of status whereby contractually limited indenture reverts to permanent indenture. The new status is marked by a technical idiom: íìòì åãáòå, “he may serve him forever” (Exod. 21:6). As Figure 3 above demonstrates, the two key terms of that concluding lemma (B) are cited chiastically (B), with the verb pluralized and made second person, at the conclusion of the corresponding law of the Holiness Code (Lev. 25:46).72 In the reworking, the original lemma gains a completely new application. It allows permanent indenture only in the case of foreign slaves: åãáòú íäá íìòì, “Forever—them—may you make serve as slaves” (Lev. 25:46). Once again the ostensibly intrusive demonstrative pronoun should be understood as intentional. It serves as a deliberate asyndetic gloss that redeﬁnes the lemma into which it has been embedded. Henceforth, the legal category of permanent indenture may only apply to foreigners; it is no longer valid for Israelites. To the best of my knowledge, this reuse of the Covenant Code law so as functionally to abrogate it has not previously been seen. Part of the diﬃculty is that the Hebrew syntax of the critical verse has, since antiquity, often been misunderstood. The clause that refers to the transmission of slaves has long been misread as íúà íúìçðúäå íìòì äæçà úùøì íëéøçà íëéðáì, “You may bequeath them to your sons

source text provides a more robust explanation of the syntax. 72 Deuteronomy’s idiom for permanent indenture has a diﬀerent formulation, employing a construct noun phrase, íìåò ãáò, “permanent slave” (Deut. 15:17a), rather than the verbal construction shared by Exod. 21:5 and Lev. 25:46. On that basis, the formulation in Lev. 25:46 cannot be derived from Deut. 15:17a.

the manumission of hermeneutics

309

after you, to inherit as a possession for ever” (RSV Lev. 25:46a).73 In this reading, íìòì is understood to modify äæçà, as if there were an idiom here, íìòì äæçà, that corresponded to íìåò úæçà, which is found earlier within the chapter, in reference to the inalienability of Levitical land (Lev. 25:34). That understanding of the syntax is incorrect. In classical Hebrew, there are sixty-six attestations of the noun äæçà, “possession.” It occurs in the absolute state twelve times.74 This is the only case where the absolute noun is followed by íìòì; there are no cases where it is followed by íìåò.75 In contrast, there are a total of ﬁfty-four inﬂected forms of äæçà, three of which connect it to a following íìåò as nomen rectum in a construct: íìåò úæçà, “permanent possession” (Gen. 17:8; 48:4; Lev. 25:34). There are a number of similar idioms that place the noun in the construct in order to bind it to a following noun that acts as a modiﬁer. Such idioms, employing the construct form of the noun, account for twenty-two of the ﬁfty-four inﬂected forms of the word.76 Otherwise, the word only occurs with a pronominal suﬃx.77 On the basis of normal usage, it is most reasonable to expect that the idiom “permanent possession” would employ the construct phrase, íìåò úæçà, as attested earlier in the chapter (Lev. 25:34). The fact that the absolute noun äæçà is never construed with or modiﬁed by the adverbial phrase íìòì, “forever,” except for this one disputed case, raises questions about whether the text is being understood correctly.78 Semantically speaking, the conjunction of the two words here represents a “non-sequence” that has been incorrectly construed as a real 73 The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, Revised Standard Version (New York, 1952), p. 106 (emphasis added). 74 Gen. 47:11; Lev. 14:34; 25:45, 46; Num. 27:4; 32:5, 22, 29; Deut. 32:49; Ezek. 44:28; 45:5, 8. 75 This includes any orthography of íìåò, whether spelled plene or lene. 76 The twenty-two construct forms of äæçà occur in the following idioms: øáMúf%ç#à (ﬁve times: Gen. 23:4, 9, 20; 49:30; 50:13); åéú&á#à úf%ç#à (once: Lev. 25:41); õWàä úf%ç#à (once: Lev. 27:24); äì#çð úf%ç#à (twice: Num. 27:7; 32:32); ìàT"×ééð"a úf%ç#à (twice: Num. 35:8; Josh. 21:41); äåäé úf%ç#à õWà (once: Josh. 22:19); øé!òä úf%ç#à (six times: Ezek. 45:6, 7 [bis]; 48:20, 21, 22); íiå"ìä úf%ç#à (once: Ezek. 48:22); and íìÇò úf%ç#à (three times: Gen. 17:8; 48:4; Lev. 25:34). 77 The suﬃxal form accounts for the remaining thirty-two of the ﬁfty-four attestations of the inﬂected noun. Strikingly, six of those suﬃxal forms occur in this chapter (Lev. 25:13, 24, 25, 28, 33 [bis]). 78 Portions of the analysis in this section draw upon Bernard M. Levinson, “The Birth of the Lemma: The Restrictive Reinterpretation of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law by the Holiness Code (Lev 25:44–46),” JBL 124:4 (2005), pp. 617–639.

310

bernard m. levinson

Figure 4. The Source of the Misunderstanding of Lev 25:46

idiom. That non-sequence has acquired an independent life of its own, however, in the reception and interpretation of the text since antiquity. More accurately, the absolute noun äæçà should conclude the clause in which it is found: äf%ç#à úÖWì íëéV#çà íëéð"á!ì íú&à íz"ì#çð"ú!äå, “You may transfer them as hereditary property to your children after you, to inherit as property” (Lev. 25:46). The following adverbial phrase íìòì thus actually marks the beginning of a new clause, structured as a casus pendens, which chiastically cites and reworks the formula for permanent indenture from the Covenant Code: åãáòú íäá íìòì, “Forever— them—may you make work as slaves” (Lev. 25:46aβ). Strikingly, the correct parsing of the syntax is preserved by the Masorah, which emphasizes that this clause is independent of what precedes. The disjunctive accent, z¯aq¯ep q¯a.tôn, which is placed over äæçà, recognizes it as the end of the clause and clariﬁes that the new phrase should begin with íìòì. The Septuagint translator did not recognize the syntax of the verse. The legal idiom in question was obscured by its chiastic inversion and the intentionally intrusive pronoun that works as an asyndetic gloss. Very understandably, he must have found the verse prolix and the formulation, with the reworked technical idiom embedded, diﬃcult to

the manumission of hermeneutics

311

construe. On that basis, he logically used the precedent of íìåò úæçà (Lev. 25:34) as a guide to make sense of v. 46. He did not recognize íìòì as introducing the inverted formula for permanent indenture contained in his Hebrew Vorlage. Instead, he took it as the conclusion of the designation of foreign slaves as permanent chattels. The implications of the false analogy for his rendering of v. 46 are shown in Figure 4 above.79 The misunderstanding of íìòì in the Vorlage as modifying äæçà, and thus as concluding the clause, makes the omission of åãáòú íäá inevitable. The Septuagint translator construed verse 46 as making a legal analogy between the land as inalienable (v. 34) and the right granted in this verse to transfer non-Israelite slaves as property that may be “held in possession” (κατχιμοι) forever. The form employed is a hapax legomenon.80 That suggests the extent to which the translator was straining to make sense of this verse, whose syntax and technical legal formula escaped him. Once íìòì was detached from the phrase it properly introduces, the two immediately following words lose their semantic function. With the technical idiom for the permanent indenture of slaves broken up and no longer recognized as an inverted citation, they become otiose. John William Wevers, in his masterly analysis, recognizes the originality of the MT and shows how the Septuagint translator either omitted the two words as prolix or skipped over them.81 Even Wevers, however, overlooks the technical idiom in question and, just as the Septuagint translator, misconstrues the syntax of the Hebrew: “MT follows with íìòì äæçà úùøì ‘to inherit as a possession forever’.”82 In this case, the “MT” actually envisions no such idiom, given the punctuation of the accentual system. The Septuagint’s leveling of v. 46 to the diﬀerent formulation of v. 34 makes it impossible to recognize that íìòì actually introduces the technical formula for permanent indenture.83 That ancient misun79 The Septuagint text follows J.W. Wevers (ed.), Leviticus, Septuaginta II.2 (Göttingen, 1986), pp. 275 and 278. The translation is my own. 80 J.W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Leviticus, SBLSCSS 44 (Atlanta, 1997), p. 429. 81 “This is followed in MT by åãáòú íäá ‘you may enslave them,’ but this is omitted by LXX, possibly as not quite ﬁtting in the context. After all, the verse speaks of passing such on as an inheritance to one’s children, and the clause seems intrusive. It is also possible that the translator overlooked the clause, since åãáòú íäá is followed by a coordinate á phrase íëéçàáå, i.e. it may have been a simple case of parablepsis” (ibid.). 82 Ibid. 83 Similar issues arise in Classical scholarship. Until the second decade of the twentieth century, a similar failure to recognize a technical idiom led editors of standard

312

bernard m. levinson

derstanding of the syntax, however, in its departure from the correct punctuation preserved by the Masorah, provides the dominant model for how the verse has been most commonly interpreted since antiquity. The Septuagint parsing of the syntax is also evident in Jerome’s Vulgate.84 The King James (Authorized) Version is one of the few translations to recognize this issue and translate accurately, perhaps not surprisingly, informed as it was by the work of Christian Hebraists: “And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit [them for] a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour” (Lev. 25:46, emphasis added). In contrast, the majority of modern translations have followed the translation model provided by the Septuagint. This includes the revised German Lutherbibel (1984), the Einheitsübersetzung, both the original and the New Revised Standard Versions, and the new edition of La Bible de Jérusalem.85 Ironically, the departure from the masoretic accentual system to render the text according to the Septuagint’s punctuation even shows up without comment in editions of Catullus to present a line in one of his poems as: Emathiae tutamen opis, carissime nato, “Guardian of the Emathian treasure, most dear to the son.” Among other diﬃculties, that rendering left the reference to the “son” unexplained and dangling. A.E. Housman ﬁrst demonstrated that opis was not the genitive of a common noun, “resources” or “treasure” but rather a proper noun: an epithet applied to Emathia, well known from Homer but previously unrecognized here. With that recognition, the need to repunctuate became obvious and the line began to make sense: Emathiae tutamen, Opis carissime nato, “Emathia’s guardian, most dear to the son of Ops.” The elegant solution is now universally accepted. See A.E. Housman, “Catvllus LXIV 324,” The Classical Quarterly 9 (1915), pp. 229–230; and, for the correct translation, G. Lee, The Poems of Catullus (Oxford and New York, 1990), p. 99 (emphasis added). Many thanks to my Latinist colleague Stephen C. Smith for this analogy. 84 Note that “in aeternum” modiﬁes “possidebitis”: et hereditario iure transmittetis ad posteros ac possidebitis in aeternum fratres autem vestros ﬁlios Israhel ne opprimatis per potentiam (Lev. 25:46). See B. Fischer et al. (eds.), Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, 2 vols., 2d ed. (Stuttgart, 1975), 1.172. 85 Thus, “zum Eigentum für immer; die sollt ihr Sklaven sein lassen” (see Die Bibel nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers: mit Meisterwerken aus dem Zeitalter der Reformation [Text according to the revised edition of 1984; Stuttgart, 2000], p. 108 [emphasis added]). Similarly, “dauerndes Eigentum” (Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift [Stuttgart, 1980], p. 133). The RSV renders “to inherit as a possession for ever” and thereby ironically departs from the correct translation provided by its model in the KJV, which had followed the MT punctuation. This also applies to the NRSV. Although it does not render íìòì, it begins the next clause incorrectly with íäá: “These may you treat as slaves” (see HarperCollins Study Bible, p. 193). Most recently: “pour qu’ils les possèdent à titre de propriété perpétuelle. Vous les aurez pour esclaves” (La Bible de Jérusalem: la sainte Bible traduite en français sous la direction de l’Ecole biblique de Jérusalem, 2d ed., [Paris, 1994], p. 156).

the manumission of hermeneutics

313

the New Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, which describes itself as a “Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text.”86 Only a few modern translations render the phrase accurately.87 With a few exceptions, the same oversight appears in the work of many scholars in their exegetical work on the chapter, as they construe the MT in light of the LXX punctuation without comment.88 This applies to several of the scholars discussed here, for whom this unit plays a key role in their attempt to advocate a new view of the sequence and relation of the manumission laws. This issue applies to Sara Japhet’s analysis.89 It is also evident in the paraphrase by

86 The NJPSV also assimilates the two distinct formulae, translating them both all but identically: íìåò úæçà, “holding for all time” (Lev. 25:34) and, as if equivalent, íìòì äæçà, “property for all time” (Lev. 25:46; see Tanakh The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text [Philadelphia, 1988], p. 197). The similarity between the two formulae is also assumed by B.A. Levine, even as he notes that the correct technical legal formula is found only in v. 34 (Leviticus: The JPS Torah Commentary [Philadelphia, 1989], p. 178). Milgrom distinguishes between the two formulae in terms of their application to Levitical land (v. 34) or to slaves as chattel that can be inherited (Leviticus 23–27, p. 2230). He still assumes, however, that the two words represent a single phrase in each case. That v. 46 represents a completely diﬀerent construction is overlooked. A similar issue arises in the exceptionally literate new translation by R. Alter, who also renders, “to inherit a holding forever” (Lev. 25:46; see idem, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary [New York, 2004], p. 659). 87 By far the most eﬀective is the often overlooked version by the Semiticist Theophile Meek: “You may make permanent slaves of them.” See idem, “Leviticus,” in J.M. Powis Smith, E.J. Goodspeed et al. (eds.), The Complete Bible: An American Translation, (Chicago, 1939), pp. 90–117 (at p. 115). Meek’s translation permits recognition of the connection between this text and the formula for permanent indenture in the Covenant Code’s manumission law, which he renders: “he shall then be his slave permanently” (Exod. 21:6; p. 70). Several other recent translations also recognize the syntax correctly. Thus the NIV (1984) ad loc. (“and can make them slaves for life”); The Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha (Oxford and Cambridge, 1989), p. 106, which renders: “you may use them as slaves permanently”; and the NET Bible (New English Translation): “You may enslave them perpetually” (2d beta version; http://www.bible.org/netbible/index. htm). 88 Recognizing the syntax correctly are Karl Elliger, Leviticus, HAT 4 (Tübingen, 1966), p. 337; and A. Ruwe, “Heiligkeitgesetz” und “Priesterschrift”: Literaturgeschichtliche und rechtssystematische Untersuchungen zu Leviticus 17,1–26,2, FAT 26 (Tübingen, 1999), p. 342. Neither addresses the diﬀerent traditions of translation and punctuation of the verse, or the other issues under discussion here. 89 In the Hebrew original of the article, the syntagm is cited as “ ‘íìåòì äæçà’ ” (sic) in reference to the chattel status of the foreign slaves. Japhet explicitly punctuates the consonantal text, adding a comma to clarify her parsing of the syntax, as: “úùøì åãáòú íäá ,íìòì äæçà” (see Japhet, “Laws of Manumission of Slaves,” pp. 245, 240 [Hebrew]). In neither case is there a note to indicate that the departure from the MT is intentional. The same misunderstanding recurs in the English translation of the article:

314

bernard m. levinson

Van Seters: “they and their oﬀspring are permanent possessions and may be inherited as property in perpetuity.”90 It even shows up in Meir Sternberg’s detailed literary meditation upon the Hebrew slave laws.91 Only Jacob Milgrom, who also renders “property for all time,” clearly addresses the issue. He supports his translation with an explicit call for an emendation of the punctuation of the Masorah, although he overlooks the precedent provided by the Septuagint.92 The signiﬁcance of the correct reading of the syntax cannot be stressed too highly. Without recognizing that íìòì begins the new clause, it is impossible to identify that the formula here chiastically cites the Covenant Code’s technical formula for permanent indenture. The reworking of the lemma here shifts its application from “in-group” (the Hebrew slave) to “out-group”: the non-Israelite. As a result, the older law has, for all practical purposes, been abrogated in terms of its original application to Israelites. The recognition of the reuse of the lemma has several implications. It demonstrates the technical sophistication of the exegesis that underlies this chapter.93 The manumission law of the Covenant Code is lemmatically cited and transformed in such a way to give it a completely new application. Textual reworking provides a means for the creation of new law. The hermeneutical assumptions involved in such reworking require further research. Yet it is hard to imagine that the permission here granted Israelites to hold slaves, so long as they are foreign slaves, could possibly have been a “live” option under the social and economic conditions either of the Babylonian exile or of the early Persian period. In the latter case, the memoir of Nehemiah 5, with its emphasis upon the extent to which members of the Jewish community “a possession forever” and “to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them” (eadem, “Relationship between the Legal Corpora,” pp. 84 and 76; emphasis added). 90 Van Seters, “Hebrew Slave,” p. 538 = Law Book for the Diaspora, p. 84 (emphasis added). 91 See Meir Sternberg, Hebrews between Cultures: Group Portraits and National Literature (Bloomington, 1998), p. 437: “to inherit as a holding forever. Them you may enslave.” 92 Milgrom, following NJPSV, renders “property for all time” (Leviticus 23–27, pp. 2148, 2217–2218, and 2230–2231). Milgrom recognizes that his translation and exegesis conﬂicts at this point with the punctuation of the MT. On that basis, he calls for an emendation of that punctuation, to shift the disjunctive accent back (Leviticus 23–26, p. 2231). In making that proposal, he precludes recognition of the textual reworking of the formula from the Covenant Code, an issue that he is elsewhere alert to. 93 With a diﬀerent focus, note E. Otto, “Innerbiblische Exegese im Heiligkeitsgesetz Levitikus 17–26,” in H.-J. Fabry and H.-W. Jüngling (eds.), Levitikus als Buch, BBB 119 (Berlin, 1999), pp. 125–196.

the manumission of hermeneutics

315

indentured themselves to foreigners because of economic deprivation, rings much truer as a portrait of social reality.94 Already, Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) recognized that this law could never have practical application in the land of Israel. He mounted a cuttingly ironic critique of the tradition of rabbinic halakhic interpretation of the verse, insisting that any such interpretation patently conﬂicts with the literal meaning of the text.95 On that basis, it seems more logical to view this permission to hold foreign slaves as something closer to a legal ﬁction that functions to abrogate the law as it was originally intended to operate. The manumission law of the Covenant Code is reworked in such a way as to deny its continued application within the community. This analysis has important implications for legal history and for the sequence of the sources. The citation establishes the priority of the Covenant Code’s manumission law to that of the Holiness Code (contrary to the hypothesis of Van Seters). That same evidence suggests that the second-person formulation of the Covenant Code protasis (Exod. 21:2) was, if not necessarily original, then clearly already in place by the time that the author of Leviticus 25 found it necessary to respond to it.96 On that basis, the exegetical reworking of the manumission law in Lev. 25:44b provides a previously unrecognized ancient textual witness to the second-person formulation of Exod. 21:2a, a passage that has long represented a crux in the discipline. This attestation of 94 The term äæçà (Lev. 25:34) provides evidence for the dating of Leviticus 25 in the early Persian period, as the repatriated community sought to legitimate their claim to the land theologically. See B.A. Levine, “Late Language in the Priestly Source: Some Literary and Historical Observations,” in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 69–82. 95 Ibn Ezra cites the talmudic discussion of the verse at Qidduˇ sin 22b, which speciﬁes that it applies to the “Canaanite slave.” Noting that there were not supposed to be Canaanites remaining in the land following the conquest, he ﬁnds it hard to conceive to whom the law might apply. Referring to the authorities cited in the Talmud, he allows: “possibly they knew the true meaning of these verses to be other than their literal meaning—for our understanding is feeble compared to theirs” (see Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, in A. Weiser [ed.], Commentary on the Torah, 3 vols., [ Jerusalem, 1977] 3.98 [Hebrew]; translated, J.F. Shachter, The Commentary of Abraham ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch, vol. 3, Leviticus [Hoboken, N.J., 1986], pp. 154–155). From an historical point of view, that insight already applies very appropriately to the period of the late monarchy. It applies much more so to the period of the Exile and post-exilic Yehud. 96 It is hard to imagine the reverse direction of literary inﬂuence: that Exod. 21:2a was realigned from third person to second person under the inﬂuence of Lev. 25:44. Such a move would only call attention to itself as intrusive, given the contextual expectation of the third person in the Covenant Code.

316

bernard m. levinson

the Covenant Code protasis, therefore, removes the initial “trigger” for Japhet’s hypothesis. The mistake in that analysis was to assume that the protasis would recur in a corresponding legal protasis. In this case, the protasis was shifted elsewhere and polemically reworked. Contrary to the positions of Japhet and Milgrom on the one hand, and Van Seters on the other, the manumission law of the Holiness Code responds to and reworks the corresponding laws of both Deuteronomy and the Covenant Code. VI. Thesis 3: The Holiness Code Also Responds to Deuteronomy Based on the discussion up to this point, it is conceivable that H is directing its radical rejection of Israelite slavery against CC alone. But the second vetitive phrase whereby H denies the possibility that Israelites could be enslaved could only come from D: úøëîî åøëîé àì ãáò, “they may not sell themselves as a slave is sold” (Lev. 25:42b). The only possible precursor for this formulation, with the nip #al of øëî, is the protasis of D’s manumission law: êéçà êì øëîé éë, “If your brother sell himself to you . . . ” (Deut. 15:12). The change from singular to plural is most likely the result of conformity to the plural at the beginning of the verse: íä éãáò éë, “For: My slaves are they!” (Lev. 25:42a). The author of Leviticus 25 marshalls Deuteronomy’s own terminology against it, in a brilliant campaign to reject the very social institution to which that terminology originally referred. In one other instance, H redeploys the language of D in order to reject the institution of slavery. D urges obedience to its manumission law by appealing to conscience: the Israelite should not begrudge the slave his manumission, since: íðéù ùù êãáò øéëù øëù äðùî, “for six years have they worked for you, providing double the service of a hired laborer” (Deut. 15:18). The key term, øéëù, becomes a pivotal metaphor in H. The indentured Israelite should not be treated like a slave, but rather: êîò äéäé áùåúë øéëùë, “on analogy to a hired laborer or a resident alien shall he remain with you” (Lev. 25:40).97 Thus, what was incidental 97 That the common terminology suggests “direkte Beeinﬂussung” is recognized by K. Grünwaldt, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26: Ursprungliche Gestalt, Tradition und Theologie, BZAW 271 (Berlin and New York, 1999), p. 330. Grünwaldt provides an excellent analysis of the extent to which Lev. 25:39–43 (his reconstruction of the law’s original layer) reworks and transforms both Deut. 15:12–18 and Exod. 21:2–6 (pp. 329– 330; and 333).

the manumission of hermeneutics

317

in D’s homiletic appeal inspires the author of the Holiness Code to completely reconstitute the legal model: to replace slavery with wage labor.98 a. Critique of the Hypothesis of Japhet and Milgrom The claim for the priority of H to D, as advanced by Japhet and ampliﬁed by Milgrom, does not explain the evidence. Their claim is advanced on linguistic grounds. The opening protases of the D and H manumission laws share several distinctive features. Each begins with the initial particle éë, employs çà as subject in the sense of “fellow Israelite,” and uses the nip#al form of the verb øëî (Deut. 15:12; Lev. 25:39). Japhet and Milgrom argue that D adopted these features from H. However, the evidence suggests the opposite direction of inﬂuence. In all three of the above cases, the shared formulation is completely anomalous for H but represents typical usage in D. This fact makes it much more likely that H here draws upon D, rather than vice versa. The arguments follow: 1. The use of çà, “brother,” in the sense of “fellow Israelite” is a trademark of D. The singular form occurs in Deuteronomy twenty-eight times, eighteen of which are scattered throughout the legal corpus.99 In contrast, this particular usage occurs only seven times in H, six of which are in Leviticus 25.100 Given the linguistic anomaly of Leviticus 25 within the Holiness Code as a whole, to argue, as Japhet does, that H is responsible for the 98 Contra Japhet (followed by Milgrom), who sees the centrality of the øéëù in H as opposed to its lack of importance in D as evidence that D adopted the idea from H (Japhet, “Relationship between the Legal Corpora,” pp. 82–84; and Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, p. 2254). Japhet claims that the very comparison of slave labor with that of a hired hand is incompatible with D’s conception, which allows for permanent bondage. But the point in D is not so much to equate the slave with a hired laborer (as in H) as it is to urge alacrity in compliance with the law by emphasizing the economic beneﬁt of slave labor to the owner. 99 The eighteen attestations in the legal corpus are Deut. 15:2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 12; 17:15; 19:18, 19; 22:1–4; 23:20, 21; 25:3. The plural is attested ten times in the legal corpus (Deut. 15:7; 17:15, 20; 18:2, 15, 18; 20:8; 24:7, 15). 100 Speciﬁcally, êéçà, “your brother,” in reference to a fellow Israelite occurs outside of Deuteronomy only in Lev. 19:17; 25:25, 35, 36, 39, 47! See L. Perlitt, “ ‘Ein einzig Volk von Brüdern’: Zur deuteronomistischen Herkunft der biblischen Bezeichnung ‘Bruder’,” in D. Lührmann and G. Strecker (eds.), Kirche: Festschrift für Günther Bornkamm zum 75. Geburtstag (Tübingen, 1980), pp. 27–52; reprinted in and cited according to idem, Deuteronomium-Studien, FAT 8 (Tübingen, 1994), pp. 50–73 (at 67).

318

bernard m. levinson

innovation whereby çà acquires the national signiﬁcation, seems highly unlikely. A more compelling analysis of the linguistic evidence is provided by Lothar Perlitt on exactly this point: “dieser Sonderfall in H setzt den Regelfall von Dt voraus!”101 Moreover, Perlitt’s crucial insight can be broadened to two other features of language not noticed by him. 2. In D, éë(å) is extremely common as initial protasis marker.102 It occurs ﬁfty-two times in the legal corpus.103 In the Holiness Code, by contrast, a casuistic protasis opens with éë(å) only thirteen times. The chapter under discussion, Leviticus 25, is responsible for seven of those thirteen attestations: thus more than half of them.104 3. The use of the nip#al form of the verb in the protasis is also fairly common in D, but occurs only here in H.105 There is another side to the linguistic evidence. H subordinates language to ethics and theology. The author pointedly refuses to refer 101 Ibid., p. 69. Joosten cites the challenge posed by Perlitt and S.A. Kaufman (see n. 105 below) to Japhet’s analysis. He does not engage the respective arguments, however, one way or the other. The dating of the manumission law of the Holiness Code (Lev. 25:39–46) relative to its parallels in other biblical legal sources plays no role in his argument that the Holiness Code is pre-Deuteronomic (Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code, p. 11). It might have provided a clear case for developing methodological controls. 102 On the use and history of this protasis marker in biblical law, see Levinson and Zahn, “Revelation Regained” (n. 13 above), pp. 295–346. 103 Deut. 12:20, 21, 29; 13:2, 7, 13; 14:24; 15:7, 12, 13, 16, 21; 17:2, 8, 14; 18:6, 9, 21; 19:1, 11, 16; 20:1, 10, 19; 21:1, 10, 15, 18, 22; 22:6, 8, 13, 22, 23, 28; 23:10, 11, 22, 23, 25, 26; 24:1, 3b, 5, 7, 10, 19, 20, 21; 25:5, 11; 26:12. 104 Three instances introduce the land grant formula (“when you enter the land . . . ”): Lev. 19:23; 23:10; 25:2. The other occurrences are Lev. 19:5, 33; 20:9; 22:29; 25:14, 20, 25, 35, 39, 47. On the anomalous, redundant marking of the conditional at Lev. 20:9, see S. Chavel, “At the Boundary of Textual and Literary Criticisms: The Case of éë in Lev. 20:9,” Textus 20 (2000), pp. 61–70; and Levinson and Zahn, “Revelation Regained,” pp. 333–334. 105 See S.A. Kaufman, “Deuteronomy 15 and Recent Research on the Dating of P,” in N. Lohﬁnk (ed.), Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt, und Botschaft, BETL 68 (Leuven, 1985), pp. 273–276 (at 275). He gives as examples Deut. 15:19; 17:2, 8; 21:1; 22:6, 22; 24:7. Note also idem, “A Reconstruction of the Social Welfare Systems of Ancient Israel,” in W.B. Barrick and J.R. Spencer (eds.), In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature in Honor of G.W. Ahlström, JSOTSup 31 (Sheﬃeld, 1984), pp. 277–286. The critique of Japhet’s position in the recent dissertation by J.H. Hamilton adds little to that of Kaufman, whom he cites; see idem, Social Justice and Deuteronomy: The Case of Deuteronomy 15, SBLDS 136 (Atlanta, 1992), pp. 76–80. While the author identiﬁes a series of interesting issues in the text of Deuteronomy 15, by working only synchronically and assuming an oral audience for the text, he restricts far too narrowly the options available to answer his own thoughtful questions.

the manumission of hermeneutics

319

to the Israelite as an ãáò. He uses the verbal formulae -á + ãáò and êîò ãáòé but avoids the construction ãáò + object suﬃx. Instead of the archaic nisbe, éøáò, H uses the term ìàøùé éðá to refer to the indentured person’s nationality (Lev. 25:46). If D were responding to H, it would be expected to adopt some of this distinctive vocabulary. This does not occur. Instead, D retains much of the terminology of CC, including éøáòä (Deut. 15:12), the verb ãáò + object suﬃx (Deut. 15:12, 18), and even the substantive ãáò (Deut. 15:17), although it is removed from the main section of the law. D’s preservation of the noun ãáò, even if only partial, highlights the ideological issue. How is it possible that D could reinstate slavery for Israelites after H had so explicitly banned it? Milgrom argues that it was a matter of necessity: D’s avoidance of the term ãáò until nearly the end of the manumission law implies that D was inﬂuenced by H’s complete rejection of slavery for Israelites, but “without H’s theological postulate that all Israelites are slaves of God [Lev. 25:42a], it [D] has no basis for abolishing Israelite slavery.”106 This amounts to special pleading. It cannot be maintained that, on the one hand, D responds to and is inﬂuenced by H but, on the other hand, the theological tenet that is central to H is somehow unavailable to D. Were D to be later and explicitly rejecting H by reinstituting the possibility of permanent enslavement for Israelites, some reference to H would be expected, either in terms of language or by engaging H’s theology. Instead, all that makes H distinctive is simply absent from D. It makes the most sense to conclude that H, as a text, was not yet known to the authors of D.

VII. The Evidence from Redaction The redactional structures of each text establish that D could not have been based on H. In Leviticus 25, H presents a highly ordered logical sequence. The chapter begins with the land sabbatical that is to occur every seventh year (vv. 1–7), followed by the description of the jubilee at the start of the ﬁftieth year (vv. 8–24). The author then plays out the implications of the jubilee by considering a series of situations in which an Israelite faces an increasing degree of impoverishment (vv. 25–54).

106

Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, p. 2255 (my clariﬁcations added).

320

bernard m. levinson

The series culminates in economic hardship so dire that the Israelite is forced to contract out his own labor, either to a fellow Israelite (vv. 39–43) or even to a prosperous foreigner (vv. 47–54). In contrast to the slave laws of CC and D, in which manumission occurs after six years of service based on individual contract, manumission in H occurs universally at the jubilee, regardless of the length of the indenture. Deuteronomy 15 provides quite a diﬀerent picture from this ordered progression. It begins with the law for the year of release (äèîù), which is to occur every seventh year and provides only for remission of debts (vv. 1–11). The manumission law (vv. 12–18) immediately follows, but the alignment is very rough. There is a nominal linguistic connection between the opening formula of the äèîù-law (íéðù òáù õ÷î; Deut. 15:1) and the temporal phrase describing the slave’s manumission (êîòî éùôç åðçìùú úòéáùä äðùáå; Deut. 15:12). But the correspondence is more superﬁcial than actual: the remission is to occur universally throughout Israel every seventh year, while the “seventh year” of the manumission law varies according to when an individual began his or her indenture. Also, the remission is to occur at the end of seven years, whereas the slave is to be manumitted after six years of service; presumably, that is, at the beginning of the seventh year. It is not at all feasible that this loose conjunction of two laws could have been derived from Leviticus 25. D envisions a release in the seventh year as opposed to H’s jubilee in the ﬁftieth year. The äèîù pertains only to remission of debts, whereas H is primarily concerned with restoration of land to its original tenants (Lev. 25:13). Finally, manumission forms part of a logically ordered sequence in H, with an integral connection to the governing principle of the jubilee, while in D it represents an entirely separate law with little substantive relation to the preceding legislation. That universal manumission should become individual, that ﬁftiethyear jubilee should become the seventh-year debt remission, and that a logical progression should be replaced with a rough alignment of unrelated laws, appears highly unlikely. It is much more probable that H, when incorporating its law on slavery into its comprehensive consideration of the jubilee knew, reworked, and thereby rejected the Deuteronomic manumission law.107 The author of the Holiness Code demanded Incisively, Grünwaldt: “Lev 25,39–43 beabsichtigt nicht weniger als die Abschaffung der Schuldsklaverei von Israeliten bei Israelitien. Hier liegt das revolutionär Neue in der Schuldnergesetzgebung des Heiligkeitsgesetzes” (Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26, p. 330). 107

the manumission of hermeneutics

Figure 5. The Jubilee Legislation of the Holiness Code as a Redactional Composition that Integrates the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy

321

322

bernard m. levinson

that the manumission law of Deuteronomy become consistent with its own appeal to conscience. That author sought thereby to subordinate individual contractual law to a utopian theology of national identity. Figure 5 shows the extent to which the jubilee legislation of the Holiness Code may be seen as a redactional composition that integrates the corresponding laws of both the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy. The diagram shows the extent to which authorship is inseparable from redaction; conversely, the redactor here shows his creativity in part by “re-redacting” inherited legal sequences, to subordinate them to his own utopian vision and theological priorities. Redaction here embeds legal hermeneutics.

VIII. The Implications of this Model The genre of “Rewritten Bible” is normally associated with the Second Temple period and the Dead Sea Scrolls. That assumption deserves to be reconsidered in light of the sustained analysis of the manumission laws provided here. Already within the Bible, some texts that are conventionally regarded as original sources represent a form of “Rewritten Bible.”108 This recognition begins to break down the bifurcation that is often assumed between text composition and text reception, or between the ﬁelds of “Old Testament” and that of “Second Temple” or “Jewish Studies.” The analysis here has sought to show how, in many cases, the composition of the text embeds the reception of other texts and responds to them, reediting and reorganizing their sequences and their substantive content. Other hermeneutical issues conventionally associated with the Second Temple period are also evident. If the Temple Scroll is in part a rewritten Bible, then the most striking thing is the way it asserts its own originality. It denies that it is any way derivative. Far from presenting itself as a recondite or jejune rewriting of tradition, it presents itself rather as more original than the tradition it both revises and expands. Similarly, the superscription to Leviticus 25 locates the chapter at Sinai. In eﬀect, H’s ex post facto revision of Deuteronomy ironically precedes the covenant at Moab both in hermeneutical time Making a similar argument in relation to Exodus 13, see M.M. Zahn, “Reexamining Empirical Models: The Case of Exodus 13,” in E. Otto and R. Achenbach (eds.), Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk, FRLANT 206 (Göttingen, 2004), pp. 36–55. 108

the manumission of hermeneutics

323

and in textual geography. Moreover, H’s revision of the Mosaic voice trumps even that paradigmatic prophetic voice by being attributed to Yahweh as divine originator of the revised legislation. In both cases, H anticipates precisely the literary strategies of the Temple Scroll, including theonymous composition, legal resequencing and expansion, and literary smoothing. This analysis forces reconsideration of the nature of authorship. The author of texts like Leviticus 25 is also a redactor. Working like the editor of cuneiform texts such as the Laws of Hammurabi, he creates a new, more uniﬁed work by expanding and reorganizing inherited legal sequences. In many ways, the same technique describes the work of the author of the Temple Scroll. This model of authorship permits a powerful literary originality. The author of Leviticus 25 mounts a radical challenge to the entire legal history of ancient Israel, as he fronts a utopian theology to the authority of law as such. Had Wellhausen been able to see the authors of the Holiness Code in that light, instead of the fossilization of spirit, perhaps he might have recognized the creative daring that is evident in a later reinterpreter of Torah, for whom “not to abolish but to fulﬁll” leads directly to the six antitheses that pointedly revise and radicalize existing law (Matt. 5:17; 21–48).109 The Matthean redactor’s Jesus was not the ﬁrst, therefore, whose religiosity took the form of a challenge to the Torah. If that challenge to textual tradition takes the form of narrative in the case of the Gospels, then it takes the form of Torah in the case of the Pentateuch. Law is here a form of thought and a genre of theology. Therein lays the power of the manumission laws. They mandate that we learn to recover the critical engagement with tradition that they presuppose and arise from. In the encounter with the text, we rethink our assumptions about how to read. We

109 Given this precedent, the position of Adrian Schenker, which uses the identical language, is open to some question: “My purpose is to show that the jubilee of Leviticus 25 does not supersede the earlier biblical legislation on slaves, but implies them and completes them.” See idem, “The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves: The Road from Exodus to Leviticus,” in Recht und Kult im Alten Testament: Achtzehn Studien, OBO 172 (Freiburg and Göttingen, 2000), pp. 134–149 (at p. 134; similarly, p. 146). Eckart Otto sees Deuteronomy’s relation to the Covenant Code in similar terms. Identifying the problems with this approach, see Joachim Schaper, “Rereading the Law: Inner-Biblical Exegesis of Divine Oracles in Ezekiel 44 and Isaiah 56,” in B.M. Levinson and E. Otto, with W. Dietrich (eds.), Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament, ATM 13 (Münster, 2004), pp. 125–144 (at pp. 138–144).

324

bernard m. levinson

discover ourselves as readers and learn to see the text as the work of writers who were themselves readers, thinkers, and theologians. In mandating that critical engagement with the ancient text, the slave laws of the Pentateuch manumit their modern readers, íðç éùôçì, into hermeneutics.

THE ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF DBRY HP . S. (QOH. 12:10A) FOR UNDERSTANDING QOHELET

Johan Yeong-Sik Pahk There is wide consensus among scholars that “The Teacher sought to ﬁnd pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly” (12:10: NRSV ). This verse says Qohelet sought to ﬁnd dibrê h. ¯epes. . Most modern scholars translate it “pleasing words”, seeing here a praise for the aesthetic meaning of the word.1 The fact that “the sage placed great emphasis on elegant speech”2 supports this interpretation. The strongest argument in favor of “pleasing words” is, however, the parallelism with dbry "mt, rendered usually “words of truth” in the same verse3 and the seemingly apparent meaning of the two words, dbr “word” and h. ps. “pleasure”. Moreover, the evaluation of 12:9 “Qohelet taught the people what he himself knew, having weighed, studied and emended many proverbs” (NJB) might have contributed to thinking that Qohelet found or chose “felicitous words” or at least had written many proverbs in an attractive style.4 But pleasing words in 12:10a has no parallel in the main body of the book of Qohelet. One supposes that dbry h. ps. , which is the object of Qohelet’s investigation from the viewpoint of the epilogist, should reﬂect, at least, that which Qohelet himself sought to express in the body of the book, if one should not admit that “the frame narrator misunderstood Qoheleth in his summation, ‘Qoheleth sought to ﬁnd words of delight …’(12.10a)”.5 An attentive reader knows from the beginning of the book that Qohelet sought to understand “everything that has been done under the heav1 See the examples of various translations indicated by J.-M. Auwers, “Problèmes d’interprétation de l’Épilogue de Qohèlet”, in: A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom, BETL 136 (Leuven, 1998), p. 273. 2 M.V. Fox, A Time To Tear Down and A Time To Build Up. A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 1999), p. 371. 3 A. de Pury, “Qohéleth et le canon des KETUBIM,” RThPh 131 (1999), p. 192, n. 105. De Pury translates dbry h. ps. as “des paroles de charme”, dbry "mt as “des paroles de vérité”. 4 Cf. C.-L. Seow, Ecclesiastes, AB 18C (New York, 1996), p. 386. 5 E.S. Christianson, A Time to Tell. Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes, JSOTS 280 (Sheﬃeld, 1998), p. 230, n. 28.

326

johan yeong-sik pahk

ens” (1:13). If this is the case, dbry h. ps. should have reference to some extent to the meaning of life or to “the very existence and quality of all that is under the sun”,6 not to the “elegance of language and literary forms”.7 In fact, Staples, in 1965, proposed an alternative meaning for h. ps. “matter”, or “aﬀair” in Qohelet, concluding: “h. ¯epes. in Ecclesiastes regularly denotes the ‘business or facts’ of life”.8 But scholars have not given special attention to his proposal, except that a few scholars have proposed an alternative reading of dbry h. ps. for 12:10;9 both the translation and the interpretation of this verse are still disputable.10 In this paper, therefore, the possibility of another understanding of the verse will be discussed.

The epilogist’s evaluation of Qohelet Qoh. 12:10 belongs to the unit 12:9–14, which appears to look back at the book and to reﬂect on the work of the sage in whose name the book Christianson, A Time to Tell, pp. 104–105. C.L. Seow, “‘Beyond Them, My Son, Be Warned’: The Epilogue of Qohelet Revisited,” in: M.L. Barré (ed.), Wisdom, You Are My Sister. Studies in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, CBQMS 29 (Washington, 1997), p. 130, n. 20. 8 To my knowledge W.E. Staples, “The Meaning of H¯epes in Ecclesiastes,” JNES 24 . . (1965), pp. 110–112, was the ﬁrst to propose that h. ps. in Qohelet regularly denotes the business or the fact of living life. 9 The interpretation of R. Braun, Kohelet und die frühhellenistische Popularphilosophie, BZAW 130 (Walter de Gruyter/Berlin/New York, 1973), p. 143, who understands dbry h. ps. as χρηστο( λγοι is suggestive, but his interpretation does not correspond to the basic thought of the text, for Qohelet seeks to grasp the possible meaning of life, after observing the existential situation, rather than to ﬁnd out “useful words”. C. Dohmen, “Der Weisheit letzter Schluss? Anmerkungen zur Übersetzung und Bedeutung von Koh 12,9–14,” BN 63 (1992), pp. 14–15, followed by F.J. Backhaus, “Der Weisheit letzter Schluß! Qoh. 12,9–14 im Kontext von Traditionsgeschichte und beginnender Kanonisierung,” BN 72 (1994), p. 35, argues that the expression is a technical term indicative of a literary genre: the words or proverbs which describe human existence. Dohmen renders dbry h. ps. as “instructions about life” (Lebenslehren), while dbry "mt as bleibende Worte, that is, words which do not diminish in their value. R. Brandscheidt, Weltbegeisterung und Oﬀenbarungsglaube. Literar-, form- und traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Buch Kohelet, Trierer Theologische Studien 64 (Trier, 1999), p. 413 argues that “Mit õôç ist in diesem Zusammenhang keine ästhetische Kategorie (anmutige, schöne, gefällige, gut formulierte Worte etc.) gemeint, sondern eine Qualiﬁzierung, die das weisheitliche Reden als wegweisend und zukunftsträchtig im Sinn der Tradition des Jahweglaubens ausweist” and translates dbry h. ps. as “words of education” (Worte der Auferbauung). 10 Cf. Auwers, “Problèmes d’interprétation,” pp. 267–282. 6 7

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

327

is written; it talks clearly about Qohelet, judging the quality of the intellectual activity of Qohelet.11 In the ﬁrst part of this epilogue (12:9–11), the additional or remaining information12 is the fact that Qohelet was a sage and so skilled at his art that he instructed the people (v. 9a = Qohelet’s teaching activity13). And then the epilogist adds parallel information in v. 9b and v. 10, describing Qohelet’s intellectual activity in two aspects: a research activity (v. 9bα: “listened”, “investigated”; v. 10a: “sought”) on the one hand, and writing activity (v. 9bβ: “straightened out”; v. 10b: “are written”) on the other. In this description v. 10 reads: bqˇs qhlt lms. " dbry h. ps. wktwb yˇsr dbry "mt

Admittedly, the epilogue is particularly reminiscent of certain parts of the book, among which are included such passages as 1:12–18; 2:1– 11; 3:11–17; 4:8–12; 5:3–8; 7:13–18; 7:23–29; 8:10–17.14 In regard to our verse, it is important to give special attention to those passages, in which Qohelet speaks retrospectively, in confession style, about his personal past intellectual activity, and in which occur the key words bqˇs/ms. " and ntn "t lb l. This latter phrase, equivalent to bqˇs from the point of semantics, assumes the function of the introductory formula,15 with which Qohelet begins to investigate all the events on earth. But collocated with the object “wisdom” or its synonyms, bqˇs16 is unique in biblical wisdom literature and means “to search for” knowledge. According to Shupak, “the semantic development of bqˇs reﬂects various stages in the pedagogic approach of Hebrew educators. At ﬁrst, it denotes ‘acquisition of knowledge’, later it came to mean ‘investigation’, which transcends the ancient system of passive acceptance of and obedience to

Cf. Seow, Beyond Them, pp. 125–127. Cf. Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 350. 13 N. Lohﬁnk, Qohelet. Lectures at the Pontiﬁcal Biblical Institute (Rome, 1993), p. 51. 14 Cf. A.G. Shead, “Reading Ecclesiastes ‘Epilogically’,” TynB 48 (1997), pp. 74–75. 15 The passages where the expression ntn "t lb l is used in the ﬁrst-person style (1:13,17; 8:9,16) could be considered a Vorsatz, as indicated by F. Ellermeier, Qohelet. Teil I, Abschnitt 1. Untersuchungen zum Buche Qohelet (Herzberg, 1967), p. 54. In 8:9 we have the same introductory formula, but instead of the inﬁnitive, there is an object clause lkl m #´sh "ˇsr n #´sh th. t hˇsmˇs, and whose “words refer to events, because the unit does not reﬂect on what people do when they have authority so much as what happens as a result” (Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 282). 16 The general meaning of the root bqˇ s (3:6,15; 7:25,28, 29; 8:17; 12:10) is “to seek to ﬁnd”, “to seek to secure”, “to desire”, “to aim at”, “to request”; cf. F. BrownS.R. Driver-C.A. Briggs (eds.), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1907) (= BDB), pp. 134–135. 11 12

328

johan yeong-sik pahk

tradition”.17 Shupak further argues that Qohelet, who cannot merely accept conventional wisdom as did his predecessors, “comes close to practising critical observation on the basis of personal experimentation. This element, characteristic of the book of Ecclesiastes, is especially evident in 7:23–29 and 8:16–17, where the key words are biqq¯esˇ (“search for”) and m¯as. ¯a" (“ﬁnd”) in the positive and negative forms”.18 In fact, there seems to be a link between the use of these words in 12:10 and in the main body of Qohelet, especially 7:23–8:1a and 8:16–17. We begin with this latter passage, which is a summary remark of Qohelet himself about all the research activity, so as to continue with 7:23–8:1a. We will next examine the passages where the term h. ps. occurs in the book of Qohelet. Qohelet’s description of past investigation (Qoh. 8:16–17) 1. In this ﬁnal report, Qohelet remembers the moments when he devoted his heart to the investigation of what transpires on earth, saying: When I set my heart (sought) to perceive wisdom (ld#t h. kmh) and to observe the business (lr"wt "t h#nyn) that happens on earth—for his eyes see sleep neither by day nor by night (8:16).

The goal of the determination with which Qohelet pursued the inquiry19 is to perceive wisdom and to observe the business. But the immediate context does not seem to reﬂect the meaning and precise ground for “to perceive wisdom” and “observe the business”. Thus it is necessary to examine those passages in which Qohelet had set his heart20 to explore “wisdom” and “business”. The ﬁrst object “to perceive wisdom” is already anticipated in 1:17 and 7:25 with the clear determination of the inquiry by the expressions “I set my heart” (1:17) and “I turned” (7:25). In 1:16–17, Qohelet uses the literary device of a conversation with his heart “I said to myself ”. In these verses there is a sequence of the three constructions of the verb with its direct object h. kmh. In v. 16, N. Shupak, “Learning Methods in Ancient Israel”, VT 53 (2003), p. 423. Shupak, “Learning Methods”, p. 423. 19 The exposition of Qohelet expresses a character of interior confession and personal experience; see O. Loretz, “Zur Darbietungsform der ‘Ich-Erzählung’ im Buche Qohelet”, CBQ 25 (1963), pp. 46–59. 20 The heart functions as an instrument for investigation and gaining insight. For similar expressions to this, see Shupak, “Learning Methods”, p. 418. See also the 17 18

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

329

it is said: (i) “I have increased wisdom (ysp h. kmh)… and my heart (ii) observed much21 wisdom (r"h h. kmh)22 and knowledge”. It continues then in v. 17, opened with the consecutive waw:23 “and I set my heart (iii) ld #t h. kmh and to know24 madness and folly”.25 The verb yd #26 seems to observation on lb in Christianson, A Time to Tell, pp. 193–200, who classiﬁes the word under seven aspects. 21 We read hrbh as inf. Hiphil with adverbial sense, which modiﬁes r"h. Cf. E. Kautzsch, Gesenius Hebrew Grammar (tr. by A.E. Cowley) (Oxford, 21910) (= GKC), §100e. 22 The object of Qohelet’s observing seems to be “ethical and speculative knowledge” (J.L. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes. A Commentary, OTL [London, 1988], p. 75), even though present an empirical value too (E. Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, EB [Paris, 1912], p. 253). 23 We see here one of the most rare instances of the consecutive waw of yiqtol in Qohelet, which is found also in 4:1,7. Generally speaking, the wayyiqtol reﬂects the usage of late Hebrew in Qohelet; cf. S.R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew and some other Syntactical Questions (Oxford, 31892), §133; Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 47– 48, 254–255; C.F. Whitley, Koheleth—His Language and Thought, BZAW 148 (Berlin/New York, 1979), pp. 128–129. But D.C. Isaksson, Studies in the Language of Qohelet, SSU 10 (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 60–61, argues that the rare usage of the consecutive waw could be determined by the speciﬁc character of the book, and might not be considered as a late linguistic indication. 24 1:17aβ presents considerable diﬃculty for interpretation because of the presence of wd #t. One can vocalize weda #at in w¯ad¯a #at so as to get a substantive d #t in parallel with v. 16c (h. okm¯ah w¯ad¯a #at) (cf. da #at and h. okm¯ah in v. 18); in this case one should move the disjunctive accent on the second d #t. LXX, Syriac, Targumim, Vulgate understand four nouns to be the object of the inﬁnitive l¯ada #at: “to perceive wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly”; cf. R.B. Salters, “Textual Criticism and Qohelet,” JNSL 23 (1997), p. 59. Commentators such as D. Castelli, Il libro del Cohelet, volgarmente detto Ecclesiaste, tradotto dal testo ebraico con introduzione critica e note (Pisa, 1866), pp. 195–196; C.H.H. Wright, The Book of Koheleth, commonly called Ecclesiastes (London, 1883), p. 321, prefer to maintain the Massoretic accentuation reading of the second d #t as an inﬁnitive, the lamed attached to the ﬁrst d #t governing both; it could be a rare construction, but it is not impossible. The double-duty of the Hebrew preposition has been demonstrated convincingly by M.J. Dahood, Psalms III: 101–150, AB 17A (New York, 1970), p. 437, who cites, in this regard, Ps. 38:23; 57:7; 89:2; 114:2,8. According to D. Lys, L’Ecclésiaste ou que vaut la vie? Traduction. Introduction générale. Commentaire de 1,1 à 4,3 (Paris, 1977), pp. 157–158, the waw in v. 17aβ is explicative, but it would instead carry on the role of coordinative conjunction, which connects two constructions “l +inf.” to the main verb ntn. 25 Qohelet will observe wisdom, madness and folly in 2:12a, in which pnh l is equivalent to ntn ("t) lb l. 26 In the book of Qohelet, the root yd # appears 43 times; it refers to the knowledge of humans, given by God (2:26). It indicates a particular capacity to grasp the objects of the investigations by the subject. Qohelet often employs this verb in order to express understanding as well as epistemological impossibility; cf. O. Loretz, Qohelet und der alte Orient. Untersuchungen zu Stil und theologischer Thematik des Buches Qohelet (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1964), p. 168. For semantic analysis of the word, cf. N. Shupak, Where Can Wisdom Be found? The Sage’s Language in the Bible and in Ancient Egyptian Literature, OBO 130 (Göttingen, 1993), pp. 231–235.

330

johan yeong-sik pahk

suggest a diﬀerent nuance of meaning compared with ysp and r"h, and the quality of such understanding is inseparable from the experience of life, and so testiﬁes to his personal undertaking to experience the entire world of wisdom and folly.27 The fact that “Qohelet had increased and observed wisdom” (1:16) does not mean necessarily that Qohelet has arrived at knowledge,28 because it seems rather preferable to consider ld #t in 1:17a having a ﬁnal value, not a consecutive one.29 While r"h h. kmh means to observe wisdom and to consider its consequences, as in 2:12,30 “to perceive wisdom” is asked an eﬀort to seek (bqˇs: 7:25; 8:17) wisdom and to ponder it (twr: 7:25),31 so as to ﬁnd it (ms. ": 8:17) and also to accumulate it (ysp: 1:16). It is signiﬁcant that the author’s investigation does not limit itself only to wisdom, but extends also to madness and folly; he is investigating every intellectual dimension, but what he knew was that even this was “a pursuit of wind” (1:17).32 In 7:25, which “is a repetition of 1:17,33 extending and clarifying it”,34 there appears again the phrase “to perceive wisdom”, which has a distinct twofold aim: ﬁrstly, Qohelet’s deepest desire is “to perceive and to explore and to seek wisdom35 and the conclusion”36 of things in an G. Ogden, Qoheleth. Readings—A New Biblical Commentary (Sheﬃeld, 1987), p. 36. So R. Gordis, “Ecclesiastes 1,17—Its Text and Interpretation,” JBL 56 (1937), pp. 329–330. 29 Cf. C.D. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth (New York, 1857, reprint 1970), p. 386; F. Delitzsch, The Book of Ecclesiastes, in Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes, vol. VI: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Grand Rapids, 1877, reprinted 1984), p. 331. 30 M.V. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, BibLS 18 (Sheﬃeld, 1989), p. 176. Qohelet uses the verb r"h, as he often does elsewhere, for purposeful and reﬂective observation; cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 121; A. Schoors, “Words Typical of Qohelet”, in: A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom, BETL 136 (Leuven, 1998), pp. 26–33. 31 Cf. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth, p. 386. 32 Cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 149. 33 The diﬀerence between 1:17 and 7:25 consists in the fact that in 1:17 the heart is given the task of knowing wisdom and knowledge, while in 7:25 the heart with waw is explicative of the main subject. Cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 260. 34 N. Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth. A Continental Commentary (tr. by S. McEvenue) (Minneapolis, 2003), p. 101. 35 In 7:25a, ld #t wltwr wbqˇ s, the third inﬁnitive of the series lacks the preposition l. But it is possibly an ellipsis of the last preposition (cf. Gen. 1:14: whyw l"tt wlmw #dym wlymym wˇsnym). The three inﬁnitives here have the same grammatical function and strengthen the idea of intense study dedicated to seeking wisdom. Cf. A. Schoors, The Preacher Sought to Find Pleasing Words. A Study of the Language of Qohelet, OLA 41 (Leuven, 1992), p. 203; P. Joüon–T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Subsidia biblica 14/I–II (Roma, 1991) (= Joüon–Muraoka), §132g. 36 The word hsˇbwn (Vulgate: rationem), derived from hsˇb, “think”, “account”, literally . . 27 28

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

331

intellectual sense. Secondly, Qohelet also wants “to perceive (wel¯ada #at)37 wickedness, foolishness, folly and madness”. The second object which is sought in 8:16 is “to observe the business” (r"h "t h #nyn). This theme too is already anticipated in 1:13; 2:26; 3:10. Qoh. 1:13 gives a predominant key to the reading, because it indicates the departure point of the exploration of Qohelet, which concludes in 8:16–17.38 In fact, Qohelet announced his determination to explore “by wisdom”,39 saying: “I set my heart to (ntn "t lb l) seek and explore by wisdom everything that has been done under the heavens. It is an unfortunate business ( #nyn r #) that God has given to people with which to busy themselves” (1:13). Here “it” (hw") refers to the “attempt to understand what occurs on earth”,40 not to “what he has seen done”.41 Thus the noun #nyn42 in this verse has to do with eﬀorts to grasp by wisdom all that is happening in the world.43 But all human eﬀorts in this regard do not contribute to achieve any result, for his quest for wisdom will end in failure (1:15). In fact, #nyn in 2:26, given by God, refers to, in the immediate context, the act or toil of “gathering and amassing in order to give it to the one whom God favors”.

means “reckoning”, “conclusion” (L. Koehler–W. Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (=HALOT ). Study Edition vol. 1 [Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2001], p. 360). In this passage it may be used in the sense of an intellectual accounting, that is, an explication of the events in the universe and thus is a synonym of h. kmh; cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, pp. 260–261. 37 Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 384, retains that wld #t can be read as a consecutive inﬁnitive, indicating the result of exploration, but along with Schoors, The Preacher Sought, p. 181, we prefer to parse it as a ﬁnal clause after sbwty. 38 A. Passaro, “Le possibili letture di un libro diﬃcile,” in: G. Bellia-A. Passaro (eds.), Il libro del Qohelet. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Cammini nello Spirito, Biblica 44 (Milano, 2001), pp. 31–32. 39 The preposition b of bhkmh, indicates agent or instrument, thus “through wisdom” . or “by wisdom” (2:3; 7:23; 9:15). Wisdom is best understood as the means by which Qohelet investigates life. Cf. C.R. Bartholomew, Reading Ecclesiastes. Old Testament Exegesis and Hermeneutical Theory, AB 139 (Roma, 1998), p. 230, n. 108. 40 Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, p. 175. 41 Ogden, Qoheleth, p. 35. 42 The noun #nyn, derived from the verb #nh III, “to be troubled about” or “to keep someone busy with” is found only in the book of Qohelet in Biblical Hebrew (1:13; 2:23,26; 3:10; 4:8; 5:2,13; 8:16), but it is documented in Postbiblical Hebrew in the sense of “subject”, “business”, “case”; cf. M. Jastrow (ed.), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, etc. (New York, 1903), p. 1095. Delitzsch, The Book of Ecclesiastes, p. 194, cites in this regard Qidd. 6a; B. Bat. 114b. 43 Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 121.

332

johan yeong-sik pahk

But in 3:10, the transitive verb r"h governs #nyn. The verb r"yty in 3:10 with the perfect tense expresses the experiment already done under the sun, focusing not on a moment in the past but rather on the result.44 Careful readers can realise that 3:10 could correspond to the result of the past research of Qohelet on #nyn, in view of which “he set his heart to seek and explore by wisdom” (intent of the research = action initiated: 1:13),45 because Qohelet narrates in 3:10: “I have seen that #nyn (with article) that God has given man to occupy himself with” (result of the research = action completed). It is not presented in 3:10 as “unfortunate business” ( #nyn r #), but more simply with the value of “business” ( #nyn).46 From the point of the reference assigned to it, one could not exclude however the interpretation, according to which h#nyn with the deﬁnite article can allude to #nyn r # “an unfortunate business”. The focus in 3:10 is given to the fact that, in spite of the business, man is unable to ﬁnd out the action which God has carried out from the beginning to the end (3:11bc). God made everything appropriate47 in its time, unknown to humans, and has put “the mysteriousness of time” (h#lm)48 in the heart (3:11a). Because of this “mysteriousness of

Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 209. N. Lohﬁnk, “Qoheleth 5:17–19—Revelation by Joy,” CBQ 52 (1990), p. 629. 46 Cf. D. Michel, “Zur Philosophie Kohelets. Eine Auslegung von Kohelet 7,1–10,” BiKi 45 (1990), pp. 22–23; R.E. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, WBC 23A (Dallas, 1992), p. 34. 47 The word yph in this verse does not have the aesthetic meaning of “beautiful”, but opportunity or appropriateness (angemessen: D. Michel, Untersuchungen zur Eigenart des Buches Qohelet, BZAW 183 [Berlin/New York, 1989], p. 61) from the temporal point of view. Since every activity has its proper time (3:2–8), which humans can never control, this is determined by God himself in an appropriate time. See Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 209. 48 The enigmatic h #lm is interpreted variously. A panorama of the scholarly views is given in J.J. Lavoie, La pensée du Qohélet: Étude exégétique et intertextuelle (Montréal, 1992), pp. 170–174. The various proposals of the scholars seem to move around a choice between temporal and cognitive aspects applied to the word h #lm. But the context proposes temporal and cognitive aspects of h #lm in 3:11, since the ﬁrst part of v. 11, “God does everything appropriate in its time”, is clearly temporal and positive, while the second part of the verse, “man is unable to ﬁnd out (understand) the action which God has carried out” is basically cognitive and negative. F. Delitzsch, The Book of Ecclesiastes, pp. 263–264, takes this double aspect of meaning and translates as “knowledge of eternity” and L. Di Fonzo, Ecclesiaste, La Sacra Bibbia, Antico Testamento (Torino/Roma, 1967), p. 180, translates it as “knowledge of duration”. Recently, L. Mazzinghi, “Il Mistero del tempo: sul termine #¯ol¯am in Qo 3,11,” in: R. Fabris (ed.), Initium Sapientiae. Scritti in onore di Franco Festorazzi nel suo 70° compleanno, ABI 36 (Bologna, 2000), pp. 148–151 and id., Ho cercato e ho esplorato. Studi sul Qohelet (Bologna, 2001), pp. 217–227, considering this 44 45

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

333

time”, humans living within the realm of time do not ﬁnd (l" ms. ") “the totality of events that God has made”.49 The works of God last eternally, but they cannot be grasped by humans, nor be inﬂuenced by them (3:11,14–15; cf. 1:14–15).50 In reality, if the human “business” (3:10) could be understood as “the action of God” (3:10,11b), it seems obvious that one cannot understand that “business” either; the anthropological consideration of Qohelet remains with the realm of the theological one.51 Even though one is busy himself with a painful business, he cannot grasp the meaning of the events on earth.52 So the business of people cannot give him any durable gain (ytrwn). Now in 8:16 Qohelet remembers these two moments when he had set his heart to observe “that God-given business”,53 further explaining it as “which is done on earth”. Thus “observe the business” consists in “seeing as closely as possible all the human activities, that people do on earth”, including probably oppression, evil deeds and injustice.54 It is important to observe that Qohelet restates the painful aspect of the business already expressed in the previous passages:55 “for his eyes see sleep neither by day nor by night” (8:16c).56 This aﬃrmation serves in reality to underscore the human limit in understanding God’s work, as is clearly mentioned in the next verse.

double aspect of the word, applies a wordplay in the usage of h #lm and proposes to translate it “il mistero del tempo”. This understanding of the word seems to be more convincing. But considering the second half of the verse, in which Qohelet ﬁnds h #lm as the supreme obstacle for man to understand the divine activities, it is preferable to translate in English as “mysteriousness of time” giving a more neutral sense. 49 Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 212. 50 Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth 5:17–19, p. 632. 51 See also H. Spieckermann, “Suchen und Finden. Kohelets kritische Reﬂexionen,” Bib 79 (1998), pp. 315–316. 52 Cf. A. Barucq, Ecclésiaste. Qohéleth. Traduction et commentaire (Paris, 1968), p. 82. 53 In these two passages (1:13; 3:10; cf. 2:26), the human business is thought in relation with the presence of God, for the logical subject of it is God (cf. ntn in these verses). This also may explain why humans cannot understand the works of God. 54 Ogden, Qoheleth, p. 140. 55 That #nyn as a painful business is already observed especially in 2:23; 5:2. Much preoccupation ( #nyn) generates dreams (5:2), while “day after day [his] business consists only of pains and vexation; and even at night one’s mind is not at rest (2:23)” (Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 21). 56 This line is diﬃcult to interpret and most commentators regard it as parenthetical. For our translation, see J.Y.-S. Pahk, Il canto della gioia in Dio. L’itinerario sapienziale espresso dall’unità letteraria in Qohelet 8,16–9,10 e il parallelo di Gilgamesh Me. iii, SMDSA 52 (Napoli, 1996), pp. 94–99 and further, Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 289.

334

johan yeong-sik pahk

2. The dynamic aspects of the failure of investigation are manifested then in 8:17, where the key words bqˇs and ms. " appear in the positive and negative forms. The verse reads: Then I saw that man cannot grasp (l" ywkl lms. w")57 all the works of God, that is to say, the works that occur under the sun; because of this even if a man seeks (bqˇs) arduously, he will not grasp (l" ms. ") (them), and even if the wise man intends to understand (yd#), he is not able to grasp (l" ywkl lms. ") (them) (8:17).

Qohelet determined to grasp the meaning of the two complementary objects, i.e. “wisdom” and “the business” (8:16); he now reveals, by means of the verb r"h58 in the ﬁrst person (wer¯a"îtî), the limits of human knowledge, which comes from personal experience (8:17).59 In this regard the repetition of the expression l" ywkl lms. w"/ lms. " (“cannot grasp”: 8:17a.d) underscores the cognitive limits of a sage. It should be noted that Qohelet not only simply does not, but also cannot discover what he aimed at; there is a structural limit in understanding the reality! Even though Qohelet acquired great wisdom (1:16) and thought to become wise (7:23) having capability to apply a scientiﬁc method to the inquiry (7:27), his wisdom falls short, for not even the wise man can ﬁnd or grasp “what God does” (m #´sh h"lhym).60 Explaining “all the works (m #´sh)61 of God” with “the works that occur under the sun”, Qohelet puts these two concepts on the same logical level. If the two verses 16 and 17 constitute a single phrase, with protasis and apodosis, one supposes that the objects of the apodosis have the same function as the objects of the protasis;62 at ﬁrst sight 57 On the meaning “grasp” of the verb ms", see A.R. Ceresko, “The Function . of Antanaclasis (ms. " “to ﬁnd” / ms. " “to reach, overtake, grasp”) in Hebrew Poetry, Especially in the Book of Qohelet,” CBQ 44 (1982), pp. 566–567. 58 The verb r"h used in the ﬁrst person singular denotes the direct experience of the author and occurs 21 times in Qohelet: 1:14; 2:3,13, 24; 3:10,16, 22; 4:1,4, 7, 15; 5:12,17; 6:1; 7:15; 8:9,10, 17; 9:13; 10:5,7 (cf. 9:11). Cf. Lys, L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 110–111. 59 The intentional investigation and the consequent negative answers are expressed by a triple construction with symmetrico-parallel form:

Vv. 16–17ab V. 17cα v. 17cβd

k"ˇsr ntty "t lby bˇsl "ˇsr y#ml gm "m y"mr

+l +inf. cst. (ld #t; lr"wt): +l +inf. cst. (lbqˇs): +l +inf. cst. (ld #t):

l" ywkl lms. w" l" yms. " l" ywkl lms. "

(AB) (A’B’) (A”B”).

60 M. Fox, “The Innerstructure of Qohelet’s Thought,” in: A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom, BETL 136 (Leuven, 1998), p. 229. 61 On the root #´ sh in Qohelet, see Lys, L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 112–113; Schoors, The Preacher Sought, pp. 96–97. 62 The correspondence between vv. 16 and 17 is documented not only by formal

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

335

that is not given however, at least, on the lexical level. Consequently, it does not seem reasonable to consider the works of God as the works that occur under the sun. But if one considers that, from the point of view of syntactical construction, “all the works of God” is anticipatory to the ky–clause and is resumed by “the works that occur under the sun”,63 being God who carries out everything appropriate (3:11), it seems evident that in 8:17ab Qohelet sums up “all the works of God”64 by means of “the works that occur under the sun” (= the events), indicating the scheme realised by God in the world.65 Thus the two diﬀerent objects refer logically to the one object. As to the content, however, the second m #´sh assumes the function of apposition, the role of which is to make clear the ﬁrst noun.66 Finally, considering the logical and syntactical relation between the works of God and wisdom,67 the identiﬁcation between the works of God and those of man, and the correspondence between the business and the works of man,68 these four elements (wisdom, business, the works of God, and the works of man) point out a reciprocal relaconsiderations, but also by the contents. In the protasis there is indicated the twofold aim (inf. cst. with l of purpose) of the investigation, connected with the expressive formula ntn "t lb: “to perceive wisdom” (ld #t h. kmh) and “to observe the business” (lr"wt "t h #nyn). To “wisdom” and “business” correspond two expressions, which are the direct object of the verb r"yty in v. 17, i.e., “all the works of God” and “the works that occur under the sun”. From the point of view of semantic function, yd # and r"h in v. 16a, correspond to bqˇs and yd # in v. 17cd. The verbs y#ml and y"mr in v. 17c are to be considered, from the point of view of the intent of the inquiry, equivalent to ntty "t lby in v. 16a (cf. 7:23), while the intentional repetition of l" ms. " insists on the absolute incapacity to obtain the goal by man ("dm in v. 17a.b); it is a condition which includes the sage also (h. km in v. 17d). 63 Cf. R. Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World, TSJTSA 19 (New York, 31973), pp. 298–299. On the verba sentiendi with an anticipation, see GKC, §117h; Joüon–Muraoka, §157d; Schoors, The Preacher Sought, pp. 213–216. 64 Cf. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, p. 175. 65 Cf. Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 407. 66 Cf. Ellermeier, Qohelet, p. 299; Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World, pp. 298– 299. 67 In the book of Qohelet, the expression “the works of God”/ “the works that God has done” occurs four times (3:11; 7:13; 8:17; 11:5). These verses underscore the inscrutability of anything that God makes happen. The works of God are inaccessible, incomprehensible to human beings, who sought to ﬁnd out by the knowledge of experience. It is known that this kind of inscrutability is expressed also with regard to wisdom, for man is incapable of getting a complete comprehension of wisdom (cf. esp. 7:23–24). In this sense one may see a link between wisdom (8:16) and the works of God (8:17). 68 The expression “the works that occur under the sun” occurs ﬁve times (1:14; 2:17; 4:3; 8:9,17). That “business” and “the works that occur under the sun” correspond to

336

johan yeong-sik pahk

tionship. The intellectual activity (“wisdom”) and the attempt to grasp it (“business”) take place in this world among human beings; they are nothing else but the works that occur under the sun and, consequently, coincide with the works of God. Thus, the two “works” in 8:17 encompass, according to the logical deduction, the two complementary objects expressed in 8:16, wisdom and the human business. The phrase “man cannot grasp all the works of God” in 8:17 echoes “man is unable to ﬁnd out the action which God has carried out from the beginning to the end” in 3:11bc. This latter phrase is strictly connected with 3:11a; the reason for “not ﬁnd” (3:11; 8:17) does not depend either upon the fact “to occupy himself with”, that is, the “business” (3:10), or upon the fact that “his eyes see sleep neither by day nor by night” (8:16). In the context of 3:10–11, the eﬀective motivation consists in the fact that God made everything appropriate in its time, but he also placed the mysteriousness of time in their hearts (3:11a).69 But the principal motivation of 8:16–17 is given in the following verse, in which Qohelet states: “The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God—even love and hate” (9:1).70 Since humans with their activity are “under God’s control”,71 people cannot discover what happens in life; the lesson that Qohelet draws from his anthropological research is a theological one. Concluding our analysis of Qohelet’s description of the past investigation, we can summarise our observations. Firstly, the passages analyzed above present a straightforward development in Qohelet’s reﬂection. Qohelet’s investigation had been addressed chieﬂy “to perceive wisdom” (1:17; 7:25; 8:16). Such investigation embraces also “negative reality” such as folly and madness (1:17) and is deﬁned as an unfortunate business (1:13; 3:10). Secondly, one could say that the “unfortunate business” ( #nyn r #) regards the works of man,72 in particular every toil with which Qohelet performs his intellectual search, to attempt to get the knowledge of the works of God, that is to say, the events that occur each other is clear from 1:13, in which every human attempt to know everything that has been done under the heavens is an unfortunate business. 69 Cf. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, p. 39. 70 For our translation, see O. Loretz, “Das Buch Qohelet,” in Gotteswort und menschliche Erfahrung. Eine Auslegung der Bücher Jona, Rut, Hoheslied und Qohelet (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1963), p. 169; Pahk, Il canto della gioia, pp. 142–145. 71 Fox, A Time To Tear Down, p. 291. 72 The word #nyn is never used to describe the works of God in Qohelet. For the “works/action of God”, see Pahk, Il canto della gioia, pp. 103–105.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

337

under the sun.73 “Business” could be closely paralleled to “wisdom”74 regarding the syntactical construction and formal aspect, i.e., the intellectual activity, which the notion of wisdom adumbrates, not the meaning itself. “Wisdom” and “business”, which are put on the same level with “the works of God” and “the works that occur under the sun”, seem to embrace the totality of human activity on earth, and constitute that which Qohelet sought to ﬁnd. But it should be noted that the search for wisdom and business is ended in failure, which is underscored by a triple assertion “not able to ﬁnd—not ﬁnd—not able to ﬁnd”. Thirdly, Qohelet does not limit “what humanity cannot grasp” in 8:17 to things about the future (cf. 3:22; 6:12; 7:14; 8:7),75 but understands it comprehensively: “the activity which has been done under the sun” (cf. 3:11).76 Qohelet’s inquiry into wisdom and its failure (Qoh. 7:23–8:1a) In 7:23–8:1a,77 Qohelet already had the opportunity to introduce his own past intellectual experiment accompanied “by wisdom” (cf. 1:13) in the form of a ﬁrst-person narrative in the perfect tense. This experiment echoes what has been experienced before (cf. 1:16–17), but at the same time gives a new discovery, which begins to emerge from v. 26 of this passage. As Shead rightly notes, “most of the key words in 7:23 ﬀ. ﬁnd echoes in the epilogue as well as in the rest of Ecclesiastes”.78 Qohelet says ﬁrst of all that he has “proved” all this by wisdom and revealed the inaccessibility of wisdom of any kind to humans (vv. 23bβ-

Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 405. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, p. 86. Cf. J.A. Loader, Ecclesiastes: A Practical Commentary, Text and Interpretation (Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 104. 75 Most signiﬁcant among these verses is 7:14, in which Qohelet “speaks in a similar way of human inability speciﬁcally to know whether they will experience success or failure in the future”: R.N. Whybray, “Qoheleth as a Theologian,” in: A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom, BETL 136 (Leuven, 1998), p. 257. 76 Cf. N. Kamano, Cosmology and Character. Qohelet’s Pedagogy from a Rhetorical-Critical Perspective (Walter de Gruyter/Berlin/New York, 2002), pp. 192–193. 77 We take the main discussion of this passage from J.Y.-S. Pahk, “The Signiﬁcance of øÖà in Qoh 7,26: ‘More bitter than death is the woman, if she is a snare’,” in: A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom, BETL 136 (Leuven, 1998), pp. 374– 375. See also the “‘frame-controlled’ reading of Ecclesiastes 7,23–8,1” of Shead, Reading Ecclesiastes, pp. 76–86. 78 Cf. Shead, Reading Ecclesiastes, pp. 79–80, 84. 73 74

338

johan yeong-sik pahk

24),79 which will lead, at the end, to the despairing conclusion “who can ﬁnd it?” (8:1a). Qohelet proceeds to present some of the results of his personal experience (7:25–29), where the key words are bqˇs and ms. ".80 The introductory statement of 7:25 is followed by a progressively structured triple assertion, but with a stylistic variation (vv. 26–29).81 That which Qohelet has found out in 7:26 is the fact that “I understand that more bitter than death is the woman, if she is a snare, her heart a net, her hands bonds”. But that which Qohelet has observed in 7:27 ﬀ is expressed by a complicated phrase. The verb bqˇs in 7:28a has its object clause in v. 28b. Qohelet sought (bqˇs) to grasp the fact that “One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found” (v. 28b). That the author did not understand such an opinion by others is self-evident from the negative form wl" ms. "ty (v. 28a), with the ﬁrst person being Qohelet. What is expressed here represents the author’s personal thought formed from his own experience: “See, I have found—says Qohelet, adding one thing to another to reach a conclusion—that my soul has sought continuously, but I have not found out” (vv. 27–28). It becomes obvious, therefore, that Qohelet knows the very fact that he—ironically enough—has not yet accepted (found out the truthfulness of) the saying of v. 28b. Qohelet’s wisdom did not suﬃce to apprehend the traditional sayings despite his scientiﬁc method. Even though some sages in the wisdom tradition would do so, Qohelet does not accept this unﬂattering opinion of woman.82 Qohelet doubts if any sage could comprehend this popular saying, for he questions: “Who knows the meaning of the (above mentioned) matter (my ywd# pˇsr dbr)?” (8:1aβ); this rhetorical question corresponds to my yms. "nw (“who can discover it?”) in v. 24 (and to yd # h. kmh in v. 25a) and to l" ms. "ty (“I did 79 Cf. N. Lohﬁnk, “War Kohelet ein Frauenfeind? Ein Versuch, die Logik und den Gegenstand von Koh. 7,23–8,1a herauszuﬁnden,” in: M. Gilbert (ed.), La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament, BETL 51 (Leuven, 21990), p. 274. 80 In 7:25–29 ms" (“ﬁnd”) and l" ms" (“not ﬁnd”) are repeated seven times, which . . underscores that Qohelet tries to grasp or discover something; cf. Kamano, Cosmology, p. 171. 81 V. 26, vv. 27–28 and v. 29 are constructed in the same manner with verb +object clause; while in v. 26, the whole phrase “more bitter than death (is) the woman” has the function of an object clause of mws. " "ny, the object clause in vv. 27–28 and v. 29 begins with "ˇsr. In these latter verses, Qohelet adds r"h zh so as to underscore what he himself has discovered in his life, while, by inserting an adverb lbd in the last verse, he draws careful attention to his consideration on the status of humankind. 82 Pahk, The Signiﬁcance of øÖà, pp. 379–380; cf. Lohﬁnk, “War Kohelet ein Frauenfeind?”, p. 280.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

339

not discover”) in v. 28a, aﬃrming again the limits of human knowledge (8:1a).83 But it should be noted that the failure of the process of becoming wise and understanding the reality is one thing of which Qohelet can be sure. Thus Qohelet comes to the conclusion that no matter how much wisdom he attains and no matter how diligently he applies himself to understanding the nature of existence, it is beyond his capability. As Murphy noted, the tests Qohelet put to it made him realise that he was not truly wise or did not possess the wisdom he sought for.84 Observing all the deeds (m #´sh: 1:14), Qohelet already recognised “what is made crooked cannot be straightened” (tqn) (1:15). Qohelet does not insist that the distortions must be straightened out. He admits that one cannot know the time established by God (3:1–8,11a,17),85 nor know the works of God (3:11bc,14; 7:13; 8:17; 11:5).86 As a result of his own inquiry into wisdom (7:23–8:1a), in his summary remark in 8:16–17, Qohelet directly links his own failure of becoming wise (7:23–24) to that of humanity in general, implying that his own limitation is suﬃcient to demonstrate humanity’s limitation in trying to obtain all-encompassing wisdom.87 Nevertheless, it is signiﬁcant that there is something Qohelet has succeeded in ﬁnding (7:26,27,29). To summarise, the language of seeking and ﬁnding is largely restricted to a few passages in which Qohelet alludes to the intent of his investigation (cf. esp. 1:13; 3:11; 7:23–8:1a; 8:16–17). In 8:16–17 Qohelet reports his past investigation alluding to all the previous passages, in which occur, in particular, the verbs bqˇs/twr/drˇs, ms. " and the phrase ntn "t lb l. It seems that very often they have to do with the acquisition of knowledge, as the objects and/or result of investigation manifest:88 “every83 Whybray, Qoheleth as a Theologian, p. 257, observed that the key word ms" in Qohelet . “is used of the innate human inability to understand the ways of God, and is concerned especially with the assertion that the reason for this inability is that it is God’s deliberate purpose that man should remain ignorant of them”. 84 Murphy, Ecclesiastes, p. 72. 85 For the “time” in Qohelet, see the recent studies of M. Gilbert, “Il concetto di tempo (úò) in Qohelet e Ben Sira,” in: G. Bellia-A. Passaro (eds.), Il libro del Qohelet. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Cammini nello Spirito, Biblica 44 (Milano, 2001), pp. 69– 89; Mazzinghi, Ho cercato e ho esplorato, pp. 189–214. 86 Pahk, Il canto della gioia, pp. 103–105. 87 Cf. Kamano, Cosmology, pp. 192–193. 88 Cf. D. Rudman, “The Translation and Interpretation of Eccl 8:17A,” JNWSL 23 (1997), p. 112.

340

johan yeong-sik pahk

thing/the works that has been done under the heavens/sun” (1:13; 8:9,17); “wisdom, folly and madness” (1:17), “works of God” (3:11; 8:17); “that which is pursued” (3:15); “wisdom and conclusion” and “wickedness, foolishness, folly and madness” (7:25); a traditional saying: “One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found” (7:28b); the fact that “God made human beings straightforward, but they pursued many questionable things” (7:29); “wisdom and business” (8:17) and ﬁnally dbry h. ps. (12:10). Among these objects of investigation, the root #´sh is used most frequently (1:13; 3,11; 7:29; 8:9,17). It is important to observe that in the passages discussed above Qohelet speaks frequently of the research activity “under the heavens/sun” (1:13; 8:9,17). This means that the objects of investigation are found “on earth” (8:16). In addition, it is particularly signiﬁcant that the research activity is deﬁned as #nyn r # “an unfortunate business” in 1:13 (and 3:10 with the deﬁnite article) and that the object of the observation in 8,16 is “business”; in these verses, #nyn is properly the human eﬀort to understand the reality. The objects of investigation except dbry h. ps. in 12:10 could be explained thus with all the human business they do under the sun. Now, the epilogist says in 12:10 that Qohelet sought to grasp dbry h. ps. . Supposing that dbry h. ps. refers to the objects of investigation or, to say the least, represent them, one expects that dbry h. ps. has a meaning equivalent to “human business”. One may then paraphrase 12:10a: “Qohelet sought to ﬁnd the meaning of all the business they do under the sun”. If h. ps. in Qohelet regularly denotes—as Staples has proposed—the ‘business or facts’ of life, the possibility for a new understanding of the verse which we propose here is corroborated further. It is thus important to verify the usage of h. ps. in the book of Qohelet.

h¯ . epes. in Qohelet The etymology of h. ps. is obscure, and all its occurrences are relatively late and are limited to the realm of West Semitic.89 According to Botterweck, “the basic etymological meaning of the root cannot be deﬁned precisely even with the help of its extrabiblical occurrences, since it exhibits—especially in South Semitic—heterogeneous seman89

G.J. Botterweck, “õôç”, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. V (Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 92.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

341

tic elements”.90 In the OT the basic meaning of the root is “desire”, “have pleasure in”, from which derives an emotionally neutral meaning “circumstance”, “transaction”.91 A semantic overlap between “delight, will” and “matter, aﬀair”92 is evident in Isa. 58:13, in which is given #´swt h. ps. yk “to do your own pleasure” or “to accomplish your own matters”.93 Similarly, in Prov. 31:13 h. ps. assumes a neutral sense as “aﬀair”: the phrase “the delight of her hands” (h. ps. kpyh) are the day to day activities.94 Thus, in the development of the term, h. ps. has the implication that each one loves to do what he knows how to do.95 And the meaning of “matter”, “business” is attested in the late Hebrew.96 In Sir. 10:26, the Hebrew h. ps. k is translated in Greek τ2 *ργον σου “your work”.97 At Qumran, h. ps. refers to speciﬁc assignments or tasks of individuals: “he supports them in all their aﬀairs” (bkwl h. ps. yhm) (1QS III,17);98 “and this is the rule of the Many, to provide for all their needs” (kwl h. ps. yhm) (CD XIV, 12).99 In Postbiblical Hebrew, the word refers to heavenly aﬀairs or things: “heavenly aﬀairs” (h. ps. y sˇmym) (Sabb. 113a);100 “the desires of heaven” (h. ps. y sˇmym) (M. Kat. 9b).101 In Midrash “Songs Rabbah” the word refers to “any good things” (kl h. ps. .twb) (Cant. R. sub äìéâð 7c).102 All this is to suggest that the noun h. ¯epes. with the meaning “matter”, “business”, “thing” reﬂects a late linguistic evolution. Botterweck, õôç, p. 93. Botterweck, õôç, p. 93. 92 Kopf, Arabische Etymologien, p. 173. 93 M. Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebräisch, BZAW 96 (Berlin, 1966), p. 58, understands h. ps. in Isa. 58:13 (with Qoh. 3:1,17; 5:7; 8:6) as “Angelegenheit, Sache, Geschäft”; cf. H.A. Brongers, “Einige Bemerkungen zu Jes 58,13–14,” ZAW 87 (1975), p. 213. 94 Cf. Botterweck, õôç, pp. 99–100. 95 Cf. G. Rinaldi, “Nota: õôç,” BeO 9 (1967), p. 48. 96 M. Wagner, Die lexikalischen, pp. 58, 92. J.A. Montgomery, “Notes on Ecclesiastes,” JBL 43 (1924), p. 241, sees in h. ps. a case of Aramaismus in Qohelet. 97 Cf. Botterweck, õôç, p. 100. R. Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach (Berlin, 1906), p. 109, translates h. ps. y in Sir. 11:23 as “my work” (meine Arbeit), while A.E. Cowley–Ad. Neubauer, The Original Hebrew of a portion of Ecclesiasticus (XXXIX.15 to XLIX.11) (Oxford, 1897), p. 17, translates h. ps. in Sir. 43:7 as “(her) business”. 98 F. García Martínez–E.J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls. Study Edition, vol. 1 (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 1997), pp. 74–75. The manuscript of 1QS III is dated to 100–175 BC: cf. M.A. Knibb, The Qumran Community (Cambridge, 1987), p. 78; F.G. Martínez, Testi di Qumran, Biblica 4 (Brescia, 1996), p. 71. 99 The manuscript of CD XIV is dated to the ﬁrst half of the ﬁrst century BC: cf. Ch. Hempel, The Damascus Texts (Sheﬃeld, 2000), p. 21. 100 Cf. L. Goldschmidt, Der Babylonische Talmud (Berlin, 1929), p. 780. 101 Cf. D.H.M. Lazarus, Mo #ed Katan (London, 1938), p. 49. 102 Cf. H. Freedman-M. Simon, Midrash Rabbah (London, 1939), p. 49. 90 91

342

johan yeong-sik pahk

The root h. ps. appears 8 times in Qohelet, 7 times in the form of the noun h. ¯epes. (3:1,17; 5:3,7; 8:6; 12:1,10), and once in a verbal form h. ¯apes. (8:3).103 As the basic meaning of the noun h. ¯epes. in Qohelet, dictionaries give two diﬀerent meanings; on the one hand “delight”, “joy”, “pleasing”, “useful” (5:3; 12:1,10), and on the other “matter”, “aﬀair”, “business” (3:1,17; 5:7; 8:6).104 Most scholars seem to accept such a distinction of meanings. Botterweck suggests however that “In Ecclesiastes (except Eccl. 5:3), h. ¯epes. usually has the meaning ‘undertaking, activity, aﬀair’”,105 whereas Staples argues that even in verses 5:3; 12:1,10 h. ¯epes. would not have an aesthetic meaning, but the “business of facts” of life, saying that in every case it reﬂects the will of God.106 In the book of Qohelet, these various meanings could imply a logical progression, from ‘desire’ to ‘desirable thing’ to ‘thing’.107 According to Staples, such a progression, however, is logical only in a theistic society; God has only to desire a thing for it to become reality”.108 There is broad agreement that the book of Qohelet was written relatively late in the Hebrew Bible,109 taking the intermediate position between classical Hebrew and the Mishnaic stage.110 One may therefore argue that h. ¯epes. in Qohelet should reﬂect its developed sense of “matter” other than the basic rendering “pleasure”. It is now necessary to examine the occurrences of h. ps. in the book of Qohelet in order to verify this possibility.

103 For the king, the syntactical formulation of kl "ˇ sr yh. ps. y#´sh (8:3) means the absolute freedom to do as he wills, and h. ps. here means “desire”, “plan”, “intend”: Botterweck, õôç, p. 100. 104 HALOT, p. 340; F. Zorel, Lexicon Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti (Rome, 1984), p. 259; BDB, p. 343. 105 Botterweck, õôç, p. 100. On hps in 12:10, he maintains in reality “that we are . . dealing here with ‘pleasing’ words, i.e., words that are ‘convincing’ or ‘trustworthy’”. 106 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, pp. 111–112. . . 107 C.C. Torrey, “The Question of the Original Language of Qohelet,” JQR 39 (1948), p. 154, argues that the employment of h. ps. in 3:1,17; 5,7; 8:6 “is unquestionably to be explained by the very common Aramaic eá"ö, ‘thing’ (properly ‘wish, desire,’ etc.)”. Similarly, L. Kopf, “Arabische Etymologien und parallelen zum Bibelwörterbuch,” VT 8 (1958), p. 173: “Die semantische Verbindung mit den üblichen Bedeutungen der hebr. Wurzel õôç ergibt sich wenn angenommen wird, dass das Substantiv õôç eigentlich etwas was des Behütens, des Aufbewahrens wert ist, dann ein Ding, eine Sache, eine Angelegenheit überhaupt bezeichnet. Die Verbindung von Sache, Angelegenheit zu wollen liegt bekanntlich in aram. åáö—àáö”. 108 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 110. . . 109 Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 4. 110 Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World, p. 410.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

343

1. We begin with the passages (3:1,17; 5:7; 8:6), in which h. ps. is usually translated as “matter” by the commentators. For everything (kl) there is a season, a time for kl h. ps. under the heavens (3:1).

In this verse, the word h. ps. is used in a parallel construction with kl “everything”. There follows in vv. 2–8 an enumeration of the constituents of h. ps. , that is, all the various types of activity in human living that have been spread out in 3:1–9.111 After a cautious rhetorical question in 3:9, which echoes the universal thesis112 in 3:1, Qohelet observes that the “business” (#nyn) is given by God (3:10). The very activity of giving #nyn to humans is nothing else but “the action (hm #´sh) which God has carried out from the beginning to the end”. In this context, h. ps. and #nyn indicate human activities under the heavens, while the action of God controls both of them. Because God makes everything (hkl) appropriate in its time” (3:11), God is the agent in human activities. Thus “Qoheleth accepts that there is a right time for every action, but denies to the human agent the knowledge requisite to act on it. The reason lies in Qoheleth’s concept of divine activity”.113 It is beyond doubt that the phrase lkl h. ps. in 3:1 is to be rendered “every matter” or “every action”. The thought expressed in this verse is continued in his recognition of God’s judgment over the righteous and the wicked (3:17).114 I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for kl h. ps. , and over every action (kl hm #´sh) (which is) there”115 (3:17). 111 112 113

p. 61.

Cf. Loader, Ecclesiastes, pp. 33–38. Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 60. J. Blenkinsopp, “Ecclesiastes 3.1–15: Another Interpretation,” JSOT 66 (1995),

Cf. M.V. Fox, “Time in Qohelet’s ‘Catalogue of Times’,” JNWSL 24 (1998), p. 38. The word sˇm is a long-standing crux interpretum. MT, LXX, and Syriac all read sˇm “there”, but the LXX reads it as the ﬁrst word of the next verse, while the Vulgate has “then” (tunc). Many commentators prefer to resolve the diﬃculty emending the text (´sm: G.A. Barton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes, ICC (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 111; mˇsp.t: Podechard, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 304; for a critical discussion, see Schoors, The Preacher Sought, pp. 100–101; Seow, Ecclesiastes, pp. 166–167), whereas C.F. Whitley, “Has the Particle íÖ an Asseverative Force,” Bib 55 (1974), pp. 394–398, keeps the masoretic reading but he regards sˇm as an asseverative adverb. We prefer to preserve MT with the literal meaning “there”, referred, however, not to Sheol or the world to come (Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World, p. 235), but to “that place” of v. 16, as suggest A. Lauha, Kohelet, BKAT 19 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1978), p. 75; B. Lang, (Reviewing) “J.A. Loader, Polar Structures in the Book of Qohelet, BZAW 152, BerlinNew York, 1979”; “C.F. Whitley, Koheleth—His Language and Thought, BZAW 148, 114 115

344

johan yeong-sik pahk

In the face of human injustice (3:16), Qohelet considers the perspective of God (3:17) and that of people (3:18–21). From the perspective of God, Qohelet cites the general thesis of 3:1 in a more contextualized form. Confronting the prevalence of injustice, he suggests, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked”,116 for there is a time (of judgment) for kl h. ps. , and for every action of both. The action of the righteous and the wicked continues to exist in such a way as to present the wickedness, where (ˇsmh in 3:16bc with locative-adverbial ending h) there should be presented justice. As Staples noted, it seems obvious that God is the active agent in history, and that “righteous” and “wicked” are simply human labels, with no validity before God.117 His contention in this context is that “God will judge whenever God wills, and that there is a time for everything, although human beings do not know what will happen or when anything will happen”.118 In addition, the parallel use of hm #´sh and h. ps. in 3:17119 is signiﬁcant, because, in the Old Testament, when the verbs #´sh and h. ps. are juxtaposed their close association explains God’s role as a historical force in the History.120 It seems obvious that kl h. ps. means “every matter”. If you see oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and right in the province, do not be astonished over h. ps. , for an arrogant one is above an arrogant one, (and) arrogant ones have watched over them all (5:7).

The meaning of this verse is unclear.121 Elsewhere Qohelet laments: “in the place of judgment, there is evil, and in the place of justice, there is evil” (3:16). But the prevalence of injustice there prompted Qohelet’s immediate remark that God is in control, for there is a time Berlin-New York, 1979,” Bib 62 (1981), p. 433; Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 23. If we consider the usage of the term m #´sh in Qohelet, referred either to the “actions of the wicked ones” (m #´sh hrˇs #ym in 8:14b) or the “actions of the righteous ones” (m #´sh hs. dyqym in 8:14c), it would be possible to suppose that the expression kl hm #´sh in 3:17c refers to the behavior of the wicked ones and that of the righteous ones in 3:16bc. In addition, if the word #t in the motivation clause governs also #l kl hm #´sh, in which Qohelet expresses his conviction about the future judgment of God over human works, it would be that the adverb sˇm indicates rather an actual state (with reference to place) of hm #´sh, revealed in 3:16. 116 This expression simply means that judgment is in the hand of God and thus need not refer to eschatological judgment; cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 167. 117 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 111. . . 118 Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 292. 119 According to Lys, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 382, kl hm #´ sh is not completely parallel with kl h. ps. , for the fact that one noun has the article whereas another has not. For the ﬂuctuating usage of the article in Qohelet, see Schoors, The Preacher Sought, pp. 166–167. 120 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 111. . . 121 Cf. J.L. Kugel, “Qohelet and Money,” CBQ 51 (1989), pp. 35–38.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

345

“for every matter” (kl h. ps. ) and over every action which is there (3:17). And the theme of injustice and oppression has been broached in 4:1, in which Qohelet observes the overall presence of oppression under the sun. Now in 5:7, Qohelet speaks of oppression and the violation of justice and right.122 The problem is not that oppression occurs within any geographical or administrative district, but that there is injustice precisely where justice should be found. In the light of all this, Qohelet counsels one to take things in one’s stride: “Do not be astonished over the matter”,123 that is, over the spectacle of injustice. There is a time and judgment for kl h. ps. , but the evil of humanity lies heavy upon a person (8:6).

Qohelet observed in the previous verses (3:1,17) that there is a time for every matter (kl h. ps. ), for God will judge the righteous and the wicked. God will render judgment in God’s own time. Now he asserts that the wise heart knows about time and judgement (8:5), i.e., “the appropriate time and the proper way to act”.124 In v. 6, Qohelet expresses his personal opinion, commenting critically on the typical wisdom admonition of v. 5:125 “there is a time and judgment for every matter (kl h. ps. ), but the evil of humanity lies heavy upon a person”. But, he does not mean that the wise—or anyone else—can know the “whens-and-hows,” for that would contradict what he says elsewhere in the book and in the immediate context (8:7).126 The statement of 8:6 too seems an acknowledgement that whatever will be done is entirely in the hand of God (cf. 9:1), supporting thus the meaning of h. ps. “matter”.127 In two other passages (5:3; 12:1) almost all the commentators have been at one in rendering h. ps. as “delight” or the like. Staples argues, however, 122 In the theocentric society in Israel, since a highly developed sense of right and wrong emerged through contact with the divine law, the proper position for the pious individual was one of freedom from the oppression of the rˇs #ym. Cf. O. Booth, “The Semantic Development of the Term èt"Ö!î in the Old Testament,” JBL 61 (1942), p. 110. 123 Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 215. 124 Blenkinsopp, Ecclesiastes 3.1–15, p. 56. 125 Cf. V. D’Alario, Il libro del Qohelet. Struttura letteraria e retorica, Sup. RivB 27 (Bologna, 1992), p. 152; Michel, Untersuchungen, pp. 92–100, esp. p. 100; M. Maussion, Le mal, le bien et le jugement de Dieu dans le livre de Qohélet, OBO 190 (Göttingen, 2003), pp. 59–60. 126 Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 292. 127 In light of texts as Isa. 55:11; Jonah 1:14; Ps. 115:3, Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, . . p. 111, argues that “it seems quite likely that Eccles. 8:2–4 is another reference to God’s activity in history. The divine will becomes fact, negotium. It is thus no accident that h. ¯epes. is used to mean ‘a thing, an event’ in Ecclesiastes”.

346

johan yeong-sik pahk

that “if the word be given a more materialistic sense, these passages all gain added point”.128 When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulﬁlling it, for there is no h. ps. in fools; fulﬁll what you vow! (5:3).

Anyone familiar with the passage in Deut. 23:22 would have understood the third stichos to mean “for he [God] has no pleasure in fools”. Most commentators accept this meaning of the verse.129 But Staples argues that this rendering does not harmonise with the view that God made the fool as well as the wise man and that both have a common fate (2:14 ﬀ.).130 In 4:17–5:6, “the tenor of the admonitions and the mention of the fool on three occasions would suggest that Qoheleth is concerned that people avoid the kinds of mistakes the fool might make in this cultic area”.131 The fools oﬀer sacriﬁce, but they are so stupid that they do not even recognize that they are doing wrong (4:17).132 Even worse is the action of thoughtless fools; they are hasty with their mouth and their hearts rush to bring any matter before God (5:1), as if the deity is an earthly agent available to respond to every whim and fancy. Therefore the words of a man before God ought to be few. It is futile and foolish to multiply words.133 In this context, Qohelet admonishes: “When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulﬁlling it, for there is no h. ps. in fools; fulﬁll what you vow!” It is not that you should not vow to God, but that you should honour what you vow. The vow was ﬁrst of all a promise of donation to the Temple.134 Thus, when taking a vow, worshippers committed themselves to undertake some kind of action, often a sacriﬁce;135 the paying of vows and the oﬀering of sacriﬁce are evidently related acts. Once a sacred oath was uttered, it was diﬃcult to extricate oneself from the Staples, The Meaning of H¯ . epes. , p. 111. For example, Lauha, Kohelet, p. 99; E. Glasser, Le procès du bonheur par Qohelet, LD 61 (Paris, 1970), p. 83; Ogden, Qoheleth, p. 78; Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, p. 117; Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 77. 130 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 111. . . 131 Ogden, Qoheleth, pp. 75–76. 132 Cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 195. 133 Cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, pp. 199–200. 134 A. Rofé, “La formula sapienziale «Non dire ……» e l’angelo di Qo 5,5,” in: G. Bellia-A. Passaro (eds), Il libro del Qohelet. Tradizione, redazione, teologia, Cammini nello Spirito, Biblica 44 (Milano, 2001), p. 225. 135 T. Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes, NICOT (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 1998), p. 153. 128 129

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

347

obligation,136 as Qohelet himself aﬃrms that the delinquency in not paying one’s vows is the object of God’s anger (5:5). Consequently the text counsels restraint in speech to those persons who are quick to make vows, only to retract them later when they realize the implication of their words.137 This means that the fools do not or will not oﬀer the promised sacriﬁce (cf. Prov. 20:25; Sir. 18:22). In this sense Ginsburg seems to be right with his translation: “fools have no ﬁxed will”,138 or, as Plumptre puts it, “they are unstable in their vows as in everything else”,139 for h. ps. can mean “pleasure”, “will” or “business transaction”.140 Thus one might argue that the fools do not have any “will” or “business transaction” which requires a vow. The stichos may be rendered therefore “for there is no business (negotium) in fools”.141 Remember your creator in the days of your prime, before the days of unpleasantness come and years arrive, when you will say, “I have no h. ps. in them” (12:1).

Exploring the nature of pleasure, Qohelet recognises that human pleasure has two origins: one from toil (2:1–11), and the other from the hand of God (2:24–26), establishing thus an anthropological and theological aspect of it.142 Qohelet aﬃrms that man’s pleasure is a derivative of toil (2:10): “I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart had pleasure from all my toil ( #ml). And this had been my portion for all my toil”. The parallelism between the last two phrases, “for my heart had pleasure from all my toil” and “this had been my portion for all my toil” underlines that “my portion” (h. lqy) corresponds to the pleasure of heart, that comes directly from every toil (cf. 2:4–9) and that is legitimate for everyone who labors under the sun (cf. 2:3,11).143 In the human origin of pleasure, pleasure and toil are strictly connected to each other, so that one cannot imagine a pleasure without assiduous work.144 It is noteworthy that the plea to enjoy life in Qohelet is Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, p. 117. Cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, p. 200. 138 Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth, p. 338. Wright, The Book of Koheleth, p. 360, is of the opinion that the translation of Ginsburg is opposed to the usage of h. ps. , but Wright’s objection is rather weak. 139 E.H. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes or The Preacher (Cambridge, 1881), p. 147. 140 Botterweck, õôç, pp. 99–100. 141 Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 112. . . 142 For a detailed discussion, see Pahk, Il canto della gioia, pp. 209–214, 219–226. 143 Cf. Di Fonzo, Ecclesiaste, p. 150. 144 The root #ml occurs 35 times in Qohelet and is never used for describing the 136 137

348

johan yeong-sik pahk

always related, except 11:8–9, with ‘toil’ ( #ml: 2:10–11; 2:24–26; 3:12–13; 3:22 (with m #´sh); 5:17–19; 8:15; 9:7–9). It is thus no accident that Qohelet encourages activity during one’s life, because there will be absolutely no activities in Sheol (9:10). But his last days, i.e. the years of old age, are those of inactivity and evil, in the sense that they are proﬁtless,145 because he can no longer accomplish any “project,” any “work”;146 his life-breath (hrwh. ) is about to return to God who gave it (12:7). When the evil days and years come, the aged man will say "yn ly bhm h. ps. . In such circumstances it would be quite ﬁtting for Kohelet’s old man to say, “I have no work (or business) to do in these days”. As Botterweck rightly remarks, in 12:1, the meaning “work”, “transaction” or “project” is probably preferable to “pleasure”.147 Summary. Our analysis of h. ps. in Qohelet suggests that Qohelet uses the word regularly to mean “matter”, not aesthetic “pleasure”. dbry hp . s. in Qoh. 12:10: its role and signiﬁcance At the outset, Qohelet set his heart to know “what do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” (1:3: NRSV ). In pursuit of an answer to this motivating question Qohelet undertakes an exploration of everything within human experience, including wisdom, madness and folly (1:13–18). Though Qohelet has dedicated himself to understanding and searching everything on earth until he ﬁnds it, he admits that his quest for an understanding of human activity ended in failure: one cannot “understand (all) that happens under the heavens” and pursuing it is similar to grasping after the wind (1:17). Qohelet’s search for wisdom brought him frustration and pain (cf. 1:16– 18; 2:21–23). But Qohelet continued his search and literary activity leaving us this wisdom book, as the epilogist underscores in 12:9–

divine works and corresponding results, as is the case with #nyn. F. Foresti, “ #¯am¯al in Koheleth: «Toil» or «Proﬁt»,” Ecarm 31 (1980), pp. 415–430, is of the opinion that this root is characteristic of wisdom literature and liturgical poetry. According to Foresti, the root in Qohelet assumes two semantic qualiﬁcations: (i) “hard, assiduous work, toil”: 1:3; 2:10–11; 3:9; 4:4,8,9; 5:15; 8:15,17 (as an auxiliary verb); 9:9; 10:15; (ii) “fruit of work, income, proﬁt”: 2:18–24a; 3:13; 4:6; 5:14,17,18; 6:7 (p. 430). See also O. Loretz, Qohelet und der alte Orient, p. 280, n. 273. 145 Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions, p. 300. 146 Botterweck, õôç, p. 100. 147 Botterweck, õôç, p. 100.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

349

11.148 The fact that it is d #t (“knowledge”) he teaches in 12:9 suggests that learning wisdom is painful but worthwhile,149 and “the results are commendable” (12:10).150 It is to be noted that the viewpoint of the epilogist in 12:10a is not whether or not Qohelet is successful in ﬁnding that which he looked for, but the research activity of Qohelet; the point is the legitimacy and ﬁdelity to the investigation. In regard to 7:25–29 and 8:16–17, passages we analysed above, Bartholomew argues that “the negative element in these passages is stressed by negating bqˇs and ms. ", and the search to ﬁnd is not always unsuccessful”.151 He further aﬃrms that “contextually it makes far more sense to read v. 10 as Qohelet achieving what he set out to do, thereby demonstrating his wisdom”.152 It should be noted however that seeking does not necessarily mean ﬁnding and that bqˇs by itself expresses only an intellectual activity.153 Probably v. 10a should not be read even negatively, as Longman III does,154 for the epilogist evaluates, we would argue, the intellectual activity of Qohelet neutrally without giving either negation or aﬃrmation of it. Since Qohelet set his heart to understand everything on earth, dbry h. ps. (lit. “the matters of matter”) is to be rendered “the meaning of reality”: “Qohelet sought to discover the meaning of reality” (12:10a). The second part of 12:10, which is a nominal clause, is much discussed. MT has the passive participle (wek¯atûb), which is supported by LXX, κα( γεγραμμνον, “and that which is written”. But ﬁve Hebrew manuscripts have wktb, interpreting the verb as active, “and he wrote” (et scripsit).155 And Aquila, Symmachus, Syriac, and Vulgate all translate the word as a ﬁnite verb in the past tense, “and he wrote”. As Seow rightly observes, this does not necessarily mean, however, that their Vor-

148 Cf. N. Lohﬁnk, “Les épilogues du livre de Qohélet et les débuts du canon,” in: P. Bovati–R. Meynet (eds), Ouvrir les écritures. Mélanges oﬀerts à Paul Beauchamp à l’occasion de ses soixante-dix ans, LD 162 (Paris, 1995), p. 89. 149 Cf. Shead, Reading Ecclesiastes, p. 69, n. 8. 150 G.H. Wilson, “‘The Words of the Wise’: The Intent and Signiﬁcance of Qohelet 12:9–14,” JBL 103 (1984), p. 176. 151 Bartholomew, Reading Ecclesiastes, p. 162. 152 Bartholomew, Reading Ecclesiastes, p. 163. 153 The result of the research activity in Qohelet is presented by r"h (1:14; 8:10,17), yd # (1:17), ms. " (7:26,28), verbs expressing a recognition by Qohelet. The most evident examples outside the book of Qohelet would be Song 3:1–2; 5:6, where the research activity expressed by bqˇs arrives at its conclusion by the verbal form ms. " / l" ms. ". 154 Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes, p. 278. 155 J.B. de Rossi, Variae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti, vol. III (Parmae, 1786), p. 264.

350

johan yeong-sik pahk

lage(n) had the Qal perfect 3 ms form wek¯atab; they may be interpreting the form (ktwb) as an inﬁnitive absolute used in place of a ﬁnite verb, as in 4:2; 8:9; 9:11.156 In fact, if we accept the proposal of BHS, made on the basis of Jerome (quaesivit ut inveniret …… et scriberet), we must read an inﬁnitive absolute (wek¯atôb), which is in parallel construction with the previous inﬁnitive (lims.¯o") and dependent on biqq¯esˇ; in this case the verse can be read: “Qohelet sought to ﬁnd words of delight and to write honestly words of truth”.157 Now, most commentators prefer to save the consonants of the Hebrew and the reading of the versions at the same time, taking yˇsr to be a noun used adverbially: “and he wrote words of truth plainly” (NRSV ). Schoors retains that “this reading certainly makes a more ﬂuent and meaningful sentence”.158 But there is no reason to abandon the lectio diﬃcilior of the MT, accepting thus the passive participle, for it is already reﬂected in the LXX.159 Lohﬁnk suggests that dbry "mt is the subject, and the words ktwb yˇsr as the predicate, and translates the verse: “Qohelet sought to ﬁnd well-shaped words, and (in this book, these) truthful words are lucidly written down”.160 This translation supposes that Qohelet has really found dbry h. ps. , for this phrase is clearly identiﬁed with dbry "mt. But as we have already observed, the epilogue does not say anything about whether or not Qohelet has really found dbry h. ps. . Accordingly, we should probably take dbry "mt to be the subject used independently: “and true things are written successfully” (12:10b).161 One may ask on this occasion why the author of the epilogue chose dbry "mt.162 It is signiﬁcant in this regard that the research activity is Seow, Qohelet Revistited, p. 130, n. 18. Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes, p. 275. Similarly Th. Krüger, Kohelet (Prediger), BKAT 19 Sonderband (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2000), p. 364; J. Vilchez, Eclesiastes o Qohelet (Estella, 1994), p. 414. 158 Schoors, The Preacher Sought, pp. 45–46. For a critical observation of this interpretation, see M. Rose, Rien de nouveau. Nouvelles approches du livre de Qohéleth, OBO 168 (Göttingen, 1999), p. 507. 159 Auwers, Problème d’interprétation, 274; Mazzinghi, Ho cercato e ho esplorato, p. 331. Cf. Dohmen, Der Weisheit letzter Schluss?, pp. 13, 15. 160 Lohﬁnk, Qohelet. Lectures at the Pontiﬁcal Biblical Institute, pp. 67–68; id., Les épilogues du livre de Qohélet, pp. 86, 88. 161 The word yˇ sr is used as an adverbial accusative. Cf. A.A. Fischer, Skepsis oder Furcht Gottes? Studien zur Komposition und Theologie des Buches Kohelet (Walter de Gruyter/Berlin/ New York, 1997), p. 29. 162 According to Staples, The Meaning of H¯epes, p. 112, the phrase dbry hps in 12:10 . . . . is evidently parallel to dbry "mt; the word for “truth” ("mt) is a derivative of "mn, “substantial, dependable”. He further says: “If h. ¯epes. too were interpreted as having 156 157

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

351

deﬁned #nyn r # in 1:13, and that dbr r # (8:5) is presented as one aspect of kl h. ps. in 8:6. The search for dbry h. ps. is clearly a painful eﬀort, but thanks to which Qohelet gets knowledge about the impossibility to know that which is done under the sun. In addition, Qohelet is truthful, contrary to the sages, in aﬃrming the result of his investigation in the positive and negative forms (cf. esp. 8:17). By the phrase dbry "mt, “true things”, the epilogist, making a good parallelism with dbry h. ps. , gives us a person whose searching is carried out with diligence and with the result that Qohelet did eventually succeed in “straightening out (crooked) proverbs (of tradition)” (12:9).163 That which is discovered by Qohelet is thus “true things” or “true sayings”,164 or “true knowledge”, which—from the standpoint of the epilogist—successfully is expressed in writing; in this sense, what is written by Qohelet is to be considered trustworthy. It seems then hardly likely that v. 10 “was written as an apology by the disciple, who attempted to cover up Qohelet’s deﬁciencies, who to the contrary, did not write pleasing themes (futility, death, self deprecation), nor an appropriate style (abrupt and frequently incoherent), nor true words (questioned by traditionalists and rationalists)”.165 Our verse can be therefore translated: Qohelet sought to discover the meaning of reality, and the truth (that he found) is successfully expressed in writing (12:10).

Conclusions It is highly meaningful that, describing the objects of Qohelet’s research activity, the author of the epilogue chose the ‘favourite’ word h. ps. of Qohelet166 in 12:10, which means not only “pleasure”, but also “matter”. The epilogist is supposed to know that Qohelet could use a word with more than one meaning.167 When it comes, however, to a choice to do with the facts of life, not only would it make the parallelism more pointed, but it would be more in keeping with Koheleth’s point of view …… To paraphrase vs. 10, he was looking for solid facts upon which to base an honest thesis”. 163 The usage of tqn (cf. 1:15; 7:13) is considered ambiguous by commentators. For this understanding of the word, see Lohﬁnk, Qohelet. Lectures at the Pontiﬁcal Biblical Institute, pp. 60–61, 68–70. 164 Lohﬁnk, Qoheleth, p. 142. 165 F. Zimmermann, The Inner World of Qohelet (New York, 1973), p. 162. 166 Cf. Loretz, Qohelet und der alte Oriente, p. 172; Shead, Reading Ecclesiastes, p. 73. 167 J.A. Montgomery, “Notes on Ecclesiastes,” JBL 43 (1924), p. 241. There is broad consensus that Qohelet makes often a wordplay or uses some terminologies in double

352

johan yeong-sik pahk

between several possible meanings, we should be guided by the organisation of the book, as well as by the passages which describe Qohelet’s search for wisdom. Firstly, the alternative meaning of h. ps. “matter” is attested not only in some late texts of the OT, but also in those of Qumran and in the Postbiblical Hebrew of the Talmud and Midrash. Secondly, the noun h. ps. in Qohelet denotes regularly “matter” or “business”. Qohelet uses h. ps. with the meaning “matter”, “aﬀair”, which is used not only in parallel with m #´sh and #nyn, words which are precisely the objects of the investigation in the body of the book, but is also equivalent to dbr “matter” (cf. 8:1a).168 It is to be noted that the most important and frequent synonym of h. ps. is dbr 169 and #nyn,170 which do not have an aesthetic meaning. Thirdly, the objects of the research program of Qohelet are “all the deeds” (kl m #´sh) of humanity. It is logical to assume that h. ps. in the epilogue is in some way interacting with the objects of Qohelet’s research from the semantic point of view. All this suggests that the meaning “matter” of h. ps. is the one most appropriate to Qoh. 12:10a, which describes virtually the research activity necessary to grasp the meaning of everything on earth. Our analysis both of the passages in which is expressed the intent of investigation and of the passages where h. ps. is used, suggests to us that the words dbry h. ps. , representing the objects of Qohelet’s investigation, are not aesthetically “pleasing words”171 or “useful words”,172 but “the

senses; some examples: ywtr in 2:15 (“proﬁt/much”), mr in 7:26 (“bitter/strong”), h. sˇbnwt in 7:29 (“result/questionable thing/war tool”), yph in 3:11 (“beautiful/appropriate”), ms. " (“ﬁnd/grasp”: 8:17), and, as Lohﬁnk, Qohelet. Lectures at the Pontiﬁcal Biblical Institute, p. 66, observed, h. km in 12:9 (“sage”) and in 12:11 (“an author of a wisdom book”). 168 The meanings “word” and “thing” are merged in dbr, since this term can designate also “matter”, “aﬀair”, “business”, “events”, “occupation”; see BDB, p. 183. 169 The epilogist might have constructed hps with its synonym dbr, which is already . . used with the meaning of “matter” in the book (7:8; 8:1) in the context of Qohelet’s inquiry into wisdom. The reason for making the construct chain with dbr seems to explicitate h. ps. , since the meaning of h. ps. “matter” began to be adopted in the OT, but such a meaning could not still have been probably accepted widely. In this sense, dbry h. ps. , representing the object of Qohelet’s investigation, could be understood as a superlative, which encompasses everything under the heavens. 170 M. Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebräisch, BZAW 96 (Berlin, 1966), pp. 58, 92. 171 Cf. LXX: λγους ελ ματος. 172 Cf. Aquila: λγους χρεας; Symmachus: (λγους) χρει:δεις; Jerome: verba utilia. On the dependence of Jerome on Symmachus, see W.W. Cannon, “Jerome and Symmachus. Some points in the Vulgate translation of Koheleth,” ZAW 45 (1927), pp. 191– 199.

the role and significance of dbry hp . s.

353

meaning of reality” (under the heavens).173 The expression is to be understood as comprehensive, involving simultaneously all aspects of the object under investigation. The epilogist’s evaluation of Qohelet in 12:10a has an important role in underlining intellectual activity for understanding everything on earth, speciﬁcally the activity of a true sage (12:9aα). In summary, a careful study of the passages relating to the expression dbry h. ps. shows that a translation of the phrase as “pleasing words” or its synonyms should be reconsidered and probably altered.174

173 One asks, on this occasion, the reason why such a beautiful construction as dbry h. ps. has not been followed by the later texts, remaining thus an hapax? Might it not be that the meaning “matter” with h. ps. was at that time already widespread enough, so that the addition of dbr was not necessary? 174 I would like to thank Prof. L. Mazzinghi, Prof. A. Passaro and Prof. Richard J. Taylor for reading a draft of this paper and for their valuable comments and suggestions, and especially to the last for helping improve my English text.

TOWARDS AN “INTEGRATED APPROACH” IN BIBLICAL STUDIES, ILLUSTRATED WITH A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JOB 28 AND JOB 38 Ellen van Wolde 1. Introduction: monoculture and biodiversity The topic of this article is monoculture and biodiversity. In the standard scientiﬁc deﬁnition “monoculture” is deﬁned as “vegetation composed of a single species”. “Biodiversity” is an abbreviation of “biological diversity” and is deﬁned as “the variability of living organisms from all sources including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part.”1 Although these concepts of monoculture and biodiversity originate in biology and ecology, I will use them in order to illustrate my own position in biblical studies and to elucidate one major theme in the book of Job. In nature, plants need light, water and food to grow and survive. Eighty percent of the earth’s vegetation use underground fungi as food providers. This symbiosis between fungi and plants is proﬁtable for both. Recent biological research has explained that every symbiosis between plant and fungus is speciﬁc: in a particular situation a speciﬁc fungus cooperates with a speciﬁc plant in order to live, procreate and survive.2 Thus, diversity of life underground is conditional for diversity of life on the ground and vice versa. Not only in this case, but in others as well, life, growth and survival is bound to speciﬁc spatial, temporal and relational circumstances.

1 At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as “the Earth Summit”, in Rio de Janeiro 1992, 153 countries signed the Convention on Biological Diversity. This convention gave the deﬁnitions of monoculture and biodiversity presented here. Generally, three main levels of biodiversity are distinguished: biodiversity between ecosystems and habitats, biodiversity between species, and the genetic variation within species. 2 Mycorrhizas is the name of underground fungi. Cf. Van der Heijden and Sanders, R. (2002).

356

ellen van wolde

Why use these concepts of monoculture and biodiversity in the ﬁeld of biblical studies? Over recent decades, biblical studies have shown a separate development of the so-called “literary” and “historical” approaches. Although both streams have delivered impressive results, the two have often become estranged from each other. Unfortunately, studies of the integrated relationships between the two are very rare, because biblical scholarship oﬀers mainly monocultural studies of a single species. The biological sciences have shown that monocultural research is very valuable if one wishes to understand a single species as an entity on its own, but that the variability and dynamic complexes of the living organisms from diﬀerent ecosystems should also be made the object of research. By analogy, in addition to its studies of single species biblical studies needs research into the dynamic complexes of textual and historical phenomena, in what I propose to call an “integrated” approach. Such an integrated study focuses on the dynamic processes of various kinds of organisms. Here I will primarily concentrate on linguistics, which until recently described language elements as autonomous entities (in a “monocultural” way). In reaction to this, more integrated approaches arose, such as functional and cognitive linguistics, which focus on the language processes (as in studies of biodiversity). In functional linguistics the word “functional” denotes that it is oriented towards processes going on outside the head, in the realm of communicative interaction, whereas the word “cognitive” in cognitive linguistics shows that it is oriented towards mental structures and processes, in particular towards those aspects of language that are covered by the word “conceptual” (Harder 1999: 37). Within the limits of this paper I will concentrate on cognitive linguistics. At the same time, I will reﬂect on ch. 28 and 38 of the book of Job in its ﬁnal redaction and canonized form, in which the former is presented as Job’s ﬁnal and conclusive view on wisdom and the latter is presented as the opening chapter of God’s speech from the whirlwind. My intention is to show that the concepts of monoculture and biodiversity can also be instructive for the explanation of these two chapters in the book of Job.

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

357

Figure 1

2. An integrated approach in biblical studies: cognitive semantics Human language can be described as “cognition embedded in interaction”, in which “cognition” is associated with mental content and with an intentional relation between mental content and external world states (Harder 1999: 39, 50). Hence, in cognitive semantics meaning is understood in terms of conceptualization, that is, the way in which something is conceptualized in a particular culture in speciﬁc concepts (Langacker 1987, 1991). For example, if we have the word-expression ball and the semantic content “something round to play with”, we need a sense of the cognitive domain of the sport in which it functions to be able to mentally construct an image of this ball. Thus, in American football its form is elliptic and made of hard material, whereas in European football (called soccer by the Americans) the ball is round and ﬁlled with air. Consequently, it is only the relationship between the word, its cognitive domain and its cultural conceptualization that makes it possible to understand its meaning as a mental content directly or indirectly related to a situation, event or action in the external world. In ﬁgure 1 the diﬀerence in orientation between traditional lexicography or autonomous semantics and cognitive semantics is described, and this will function as a summary of what I shall go on to explain. Fundamental in cognitive semantics is the notion of “concept”. This can be deﬁned as “a person’s idea of what something in the world is

358

ellen van wolde

like” (Dirven, Verspoor 1998:14). Concepts can relate to single entities or to a whole set of entities. The concepts, which slice reality into relevant units, are called categories (Taylor 1995, 2002). Conceptual categories are concepts of a set as a whole. Whenever we perceive something, we automatically tend to categorize it. For example, when we hear a piece of music, we automatically categorize it as rock music or as classical music or as something else. Thus, the world is not some kind of reality existing in it but is always shaped by our categorizing activity, i.e., by our human perception, knowledge, and attitude. This does not mean that we create a subjective reality but, as a community, we agree about our intersubjective experiences. Therefore, in order to understand a concept, information is needed about a culture’s categorizations and the physical, biological and geographical circumstances in which these function. An example of a cultural categorization is the Hebrew word íé. This word is translated in Hebrew dictionaries with “sea”, speciﬁed as “a mass of salt water”. In such a lexicographical description, the word is the starting point for the analysis and the result is the word’s denotation in a concept. In a cognitive or conceptual analysis the starting point is the perception or experience of the world in a certain place and at a certain time in connection with the conceptualization of the culture it belongs to. When we modern people think of “the sea”, we have in our mind’s eye a world map with seas that separate continents or countries, thus we conceive of the sea as an in-between water area. However, maps in the ancient world, from the Babylonian map on BM 92687 to the Greek maps drawn by Anaximander and Herodotus, share a belief that the inhabited world was surrounded by water.3 Therefore, in the ancient world the “sea” is conceptualized as water surrounding the earth, not as in-between water. Another example. When people in northwest Europe or in the USA think of the crescent moon, they have a mental representation of a vertically standing crescent. Whenever they read about it, they automatically have such an image in their minds. However, in Assyrian and Babylonian art, we often see the crescent moon “high in the 3 “In Greece, the cosmic ocean Oceanus, like the marratu on BM 92687, was believed to encircle the continental portion of the earth’s surface.” (Horowitz 1998: 41). “The Babylonian Map of the World and The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk demonstrate that the Baylonians, at least, believed that a cosmic ocean encircled the continental portion of the earth’s surface.” (Horowitz 1998: 325).

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

359

air”, together with the sun and the planet Venus, and there the crescent moon is always pictured horizontally, with the two points directed upwards.4 In some Babylonian texts the crescent moon is called a “horn”,5 whereas in others, such as those from the Middle-Babylonian or Kassite period, a “boat” stands for the crescent moon (Stol 1992: 247–249), and in quite a few Babylonian pictures Marduk is visualized with a horizontal sickle on his head.6 Thus, from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day in Muslim countries, the moon crescent appears to be conceived horizontally. Astronomical research explains that it is the position on the earth with regard to the equator, which determines the angle from which we view the Moon.7 If the Moon goes up almost straight from the horizon (as it does when seen from the equator), then the crescent appears horizontal. If the Moon rises at a shallow angle (as seen far from the equator), then the crescent is mostly vertical. Consequently, in Iraq or Iran people perceive the crescent horizontally, and their conceptualization of the crescent has its ground in their geographical position. In conclusion, in order to understand the meaning of a word, it is not suﬃcient to study the language as an autonomous system in the traditional lexicographic way, in which one starts with a study of the words and their relationships in the language paradigm and then studies these words’ usages and applications in syntagmatic textual relationships. In addition to that, a cognitive approach is needed, in which one starts in the ﬁrst place with a study of a culture’s conceptualizations and categorizations and with a study of the physical, biological, and geographical circumstances in which these function. Secondly, we need a study of the manner in which these categories are arranged into conceptual structures and cognitive domains, because these function as the framework in which the words actually used can express speciﬁc, culture bound concepts. One of the theoretical concepts which cognitive semantics developed to study the relation between the linguistic concepts and the experienced reality is “prototypical scenario”. That is a procedure in which 4 See for an extensive description on the Babylonian representation of the moon: Collon (1992) and Colbow (1997). 5 E.g.: Enki and Ninmah: “he comes up, Sîn, the Lord of the horn and the halo.” (Stol 1992: 245–246). 6 See for an extensive description on the Babylonians’ conceptualization of the moon: Stol (1992). 7 See for an extensive explanation: www.astro.uu.nl.

360

ellen van wolde

a continuum of experiences and events is expressed by a more or less ﬁxed series of words. (Yri 1998: 44–55; Dirven, Verspoor 1998: 145– 156). An example of a prototypical scenario in Biblical Hebrew is the following, taken from the cognitive domain of marriage making. Sociological, historical and textual analysis of data in the ancient Near East permits us to create an “image schema” or mental picture of marriage in that time and place. Subsequent linguistic research will teach us that in Biblical Hebrew marriage making is represented by a chain of verbs: the future husband’s spatial movement (expressed by àöé, íå÷, êìä), his seeing (expressed by äàø), (sometimes) his negotiation with the family (expressed by direct discourses marked by øîà), (sometimes) the man’s giving of money or a gift (expressed by øäåî / óñë ïúð), the family’s giving of the wife (expressed by äùàì åì ïúð ), (sometimes) the celebration of the transaction (expressed by äúùî, äúù, ìëà), and (always) the girl’s or young woman’s spatial transfer, in which the husband takes her into his own house (expressed by ç÷ì). Hence, in the prototypical procedure of marriage, three elements, the future husband coming to the father’s house to which the girl belongs, the father’s giving and the husband’s transport of the girl from her father’s family (áà úá) to his own family (áà úá), forms the nucleus. In this procedure the verb ç÷ì denotes the girl’s transfer from one house to another. In conclusion, these examples make a reasonable case for biblical studies to develop integrated approaches, which are aimed at research into related data-complexes. In such an approach all kinds of data provided by archaeology, geography, history, epigraphy, iconography, sociology and comparative literary studies of biblical and ancient Near Eastern sources, make up an integral part. But, this integration of diverse material is very diﬃcult, not to say impossible, for a single scholar to do on his or her own. Therefore, it will require teamwork of (among others) archaeologists, historians, sociologists, linguists, literary critics and theologians to make the variability and dynamic complexes of these historical and textual relationships the object of a proper integrated form of research. Nevertheless, I will try to present some results of an integrated approach, viz. a cognitive semantic study of Job 28 and Job 38, which can only be fragmentary and provisionary.

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

361

3. Archaeological data and the study of a prototypical scenario in Job 28: 1–11 The song of wisdom in Job 28 is clearly structured. Two very similar questions “And as for wisdom, where can it be found?” (v. 12) and “And as for wisdom, where does it come from?” (v. 20), constitute a kind of refrain in vv. 12–14 and vv. 20–22. The three main parts divided by these refrains are the ﬁrst eleven verses, the second part in vv. 15–19 starting with the negative lo, and the last part in vv. 23– 28. The very last verse provides the answer to the question posed: “He (God) said to humans: ‘Fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding’.” (28:28) It is surprising that this wisdom poem in Job 28 opens with a description of mining activities in the ﬁrst eleven verses.8 The question is whether digging up information on mining and metallurgy in the ancient Near East might help us to understand the prototypical images or image schemas at the time. These archaeological data can be obtained from Rothenberg’s research reports of the copper mines in the Timna’ Valley.9 Pictures of the Timna’ Valley, a place that lies far away from habitation in the Negev desert, clearly show the holes at the lower parts of the cliﬀs; they are the entrances to underground mining systems.10 Archaeological research of this area revealed that deep shafts, some more than 20 metres deep, were carved vertically into the cupriferous white sandstone formations. For example, the rock-cut shaft of site 212 is 21 metres deep, with niches for footholds cut into its sides; and the shaft of site 9 contains all round the mouth the marks that are made by ropes scouring the surface, as persons and buckets were raised and lowered.11 Narrow galleries of about 70 centimetres wide and 1 metre high were driven horizontally into the white rock; they branched and

8 For an extensive autonomous semantic and cognitive semantic research of the separate words in Job 28: 1–11, see van Wolde (2003). For an extensive autonomous semantic study of ø÷ç in Job 28, see Aitken (2003), and for an extensive cognitive semantic study of ø÷ç in Job 28, see Van Hecke (2003). 9 Rothenberg (1972, 1978) shows that the mining activities in the Timna’ Valley took place from the Early Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Iron Age I, Iron Age II, Hellenistic era, Roman era and Byzantine era. Copper smelting places and mines from all these periods have been found in that area. 10 See Rothenberg (1972: plate 1–2), also published in van Wolde (2003: 15–16). 11 See Rothenberg (1972: plate 18, 1978, p. 1202), also published in van Wolde (2003: 16).

362

ellen van wolde

sometimes widened out underground.12 Rocks with copper ore were hammered with picks, deep into hillsides through dark, narrow tunnels. Slaves, criminals, and captives did this harsh work. The pieces were then transported to the open air in buckets. Above the ground, another team (usually women) pounded the stones into smaller bits. The crushed bits were subsequently thrown into a smelting furnace and the slag tapped out of the furnaces was crushed to extract the metallic copper pellets entrapped in the slag. Huge slag heaps were the result of this mining process. Still visible till the present day, are the consequences of these centuries of mining activities: the Timna’ cliﬀs framing the plains, the cliﬀs with empty holes (the entrances to the ancient copper mines) at their foot, and the dark areas with the smelting slags in the plains where once were the copper furnaces and crucibles.13 This archaeological research gives us an idea of ancient Near Eastern mining procedures, which are apparently executed in a more or less ﬁxed series of actions. In recent ethno-archaeology, studies are made of the more or less ﬁxed series of actions in the area of ceramic making, agriculture, architecture etc. This tendency is parallel to the cognitive linguistic research into prototypical scenarios, in which a more or less standardized series of actions is expressed by a more or less ﬁxed series of words. Thus, from a cognitive point of view, we can explain that, even though the author of Job 28 may never have been a miner himself nor ever have visited a copper mine, he nevertheless had a mental image, a conception of the conventional procedure of mining at that time. This author and his contemporaneous readers made use of the prototypical scenario oﬀered by the language to refer to such a mining process. The ﬁrst part of ﬁgure 2 shows the prototypical scenario of mining in the ancient Near East. However, this is not the order as it is presented in Job 28 which becomes visible in the second part of ﬁgure 2. In Job 28, vv. 1–2 describe the result of extraction procedures and vv. 3–4 tell about the preparatory work of making shafts and about the hanging of the miners; then, in vv. 5–6 the camera no longer focuses upon the people, but on the earth, and it appears that the mining activities described in the ﬁrst verses have consequences for the earth, in which the verb êôä (used twice in v. 5 and 9) denotes the earth’s

12 13

See Rothenberg (1978: p. 1202), also published in van Wolde (2003: 17). See Rothenberg (1972: plate 119), also published in van Wolde (2003: 19).

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

363

Figure 2

destruction.14 The episode concludes in vv. 9–11 with overturned mountains, shafts broken open, dammed up rivers, that is, with the complete transformation of the earth. Thus, the deviation from the prototypical order marks the change in orientation: what is usually understood as a human action is presented here from the perspective of its eﬀects on the earth. Many elements conﬁrm this particular orientation: (1) the occurrence of the prepositions ïî or î (“out of earth material” in v. 2, “the earth, out of it” in v. 5), and úçú (“the earth- from beneath it” in v. 5) shows that the cognitive domains are deﬁned relative to the earth: the situation is viewed from the earth’s point of view; 14 This verb is used in contexts of complete destruction, such as the ﬂood story in Gen. 6–9, the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 15, and the threat of a total overturn of Niniveh in Jonah 4 (cf. Kamp 2004: 215).

364

ellen van wolde

(2) in v. 1, the extraction procedure of silver and gold is described, but no reference is made to the minerals of silver and gold themselves, but to their place (àöåî óñëì) and their placer (áäæì íå÷î); (3) in v. 2, explicit reference is made to the earth, viz. to the earthly material (øôò) in iron extraction and the earthly stone (ïáà) in copper extraction; (4) in v. 3, the shafts and galleries are described as part of the human mining activities, and the object of their actions is referred to as ïáà, “stone in gloom and darkness”; (5) in v. 5, food is said to be the earth’s; (6) in v. 6a, the stones (third time ïáà) where sapphire is found, are said to be the earth’s; (7) in v. 6b, the dust of gold is said to be the earth’s; (8) in vv. 9–11 the eﬀects of the human mining activities on the earth are explicitly described: the earth’s mountains are turned upside down, its inside is burnt, and its rivers are dammed up. In short, the change in the prototypical conceptual order in Job 28, which starts with a reference to the human activities but subsequently shifts its focus to the earth, indicates what its main point is, namely the eﬀect of this glorious human expertise on the earth. 4. Wisdom in Job 28: 1–28 What does this tell us about wisdom? Wisdom is not mentioned in the ﬁrst eleven verses. It is only v. 12 that let us infer that it is wisdom that the verses 1–11 are referring to. Hence, in vv. 1–11 a comparison is made between the glorious and impressive human activities of mining and its precious products with the human search for wisdom and exploration of wisdom. At ﬁrst sight, the obvious conclusion is that human beings are not able to ﬁnd wisdom, notwithstanding their impressive explorations. However, the deviation from the prototypical order shows that the perspective shared in vv. 1–11 is mainly that of the earth: the origin of the mined materials is the earth’s, the result or product (“food”) is called the earth’s, and the eﬀects are on the earth. And in addition to that, these verses do not speak about human beings only: the vultures are not able to discover wisdom’s path; the lion and other dangerous wild animals, even they have not trodden on the path to wisdom. Verse 13 sums it up explicitly: on earth, íééçä õøàá, no one is able to ﬁnd wis-

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

365

dom. Therefore, in this ﬁrst section stress is laid on the earth: wisdom cannot be found by the sharpest eyed bird, not by the wildest animal and not by the smartest of people. In Job 28 a ﬁnal and conclusive human idea of wisdom is presented. One could say that wisdom is conceptualized in a monocultural way. The mining episode in vv. 1–11 is focused on the devastating eﬀects of the human monomaniac mining enterprise. The pictures of the holes and slags in the Timna’ valley illustrate it: this is monoculture in its absolute form. But the refrain shows that wisdom cannot be the result of such an extraction procedure. The exchange episode in vv. 15–19 also implies that wisdom, although transcending the exchange between valuables, can be conceived of as a single entity. Even in the last episode (vv. 23–28) where God is said to have found wisdom at the time of creation (Geller 1987: 166), it is implied that wisdom is a single entity. Most strongly this is expressed in the last verse where God is said to proclaim what is wisdom for human beings. Here again, wisdom is conceived of as a single entity or species in the semantic domain of creation. In conclusion, wisdom is deﬁned in Job 28 as an entity that is (1) conﬁned to primeval times, (2) related to God only, in the sense that he is the only one that knows it to its full extent, and there is (3) one single option for human beings, viz. to fear God and to reject evil. 5. The structure of God’s speech in Job 38 Chapter 28’s view of wisdom diﬀers radically from God’s view presented in ch. 38. In order to be able to investigate some of its concepts as standing out on the cognitive domains in the prevalent culture, I will start with some short remarks on the syntactic and semantic cohesion of ch. 38. Immediate after the opening address in 38:1–3, God poses in vv. 4– 6 four person-oriented questions (three times repeated “who?”) that refer to the earth’s origins and to the person who made it. Explicitly introduced in v. 4 is “the earth” as object of God’s building activity, and the suﬃxes in vv. 5b, 6a and 6b also refer back to it. The inﬁnitive construction in v. 7a provides the temporal point of orientation of vv. 7b, 8a and 8b.15 The topic referred to in vv. 7–8 is “the sea”. The singing The á +inﬁnitive construct ïøá, “when they sang”, in v. 7a implies an action that is simultaneous with that of the subsequent main clause in v. 7b (with wayyiqtol åòéøéå) to 15

366

ellen van wolde

morning stars (presented as God’s sons) constitute the background of the joy against which God’s hedging in of the sea takes place (v. 8). The masculine pronominal suﬃx in vv. 9–11 shows that the object is still the sea, in which v. 9 provides the temporal framework and grounds the setting on which the actions in vv. 10 and 11 stand out. As a consequence, a parallelism becomes visible between vv. 7–8 on the one hand and vv. 9–11 on the other: analogous to v. 7 in which the closing in of the waters is proﬁled in the setting of joy, v. 9 highlights God’s hedging in and limitation of the waters in the setting of protection with clouds as clothes and swaddling bands. In sum, the episode vv. 4–11 in its entirety tells about the primeval times in which the creation of the earth is displayed as a building activity with God as architect and builder, and the origin of the sea is, although related to the word “womb”, not referred to as created but as restricted or restrained. The sea’s closing in is highlighted and the ground for joy. Creation is, therefore, conceived of in these verses as building of the earth and as limitation of the sea. In the subsequent section, vv. 12–15, no reference is made to a remote primeval time, but to a time frame that is related to the addressed person “you”: it relates to a stretch of time that is related to Job (“in your days”). This “day” category is conﬁrmed by the concepts of morning and dawn. Here again, as in the previous episode, creation and limitation go hand in hand. Morning and dawn come, but shake oﬀ the wicked as well. The metaphors in v. 14 of seal impressions on clay and colour printing on a garment evoke the idea of the earth that is transformed every day anew. Its dynamics and complexity is visualised as a daily process of coming into light as well as of deprivation of light. Then, in vv. 16–18 the focus is shifted to the “sources of the sea” and the “recesses of the deep” or íäú (v. 16) and to the gates of death and death’s gloom (v. 17–18). Whereas in vv. 16–18 the íäú and gates of death reﬂect the death as such, vv. 19–20 refer to every day’s ending. It evokes an image of the place where the sun or light goes and of the place where the night’s darkness is located. Even in the last verse, v. 21, the direct address “you” in the “number of your days” is an idiomatic expression of a life span, that is, life including death. In sum, vv. 16–21

be translated as: “Who set its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together, all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The wayyiqtol form in v. 8a continues this mainline of action.

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

367

display the end of life in general and the end of every day and the end of “your” life more speciﬁcally. In the next episode, vv. 22–30, the camera focuses on a new topic, the meteorological phenomena. In contrast to vv. 22–27 which concern the place and path of the vaults of snow and hail, the path of the winds and thunderstorms, and the channel for the torrents, vv. 28–29 poses questions about the parents of these phenomena, that is, they refer to the origin of these weather phenomena. Vall (1995) argued convincingly that these questions presuppose a negative answer: “No, the rain has no father; and no, a mother did not give birth to the frost of heaven.” In v. 30 the frozen water is connected with the abyss and it contains the implied question: is this the end or death of water? Here, again a negative answer is presupposed. In sum, in vv. 22–30, the topic is that of meteorological phenomena, their places and paths, as well their origin and end, and the rhetorical questions guide us to conclude that weather and water have no beginning or ending. Another barrage of questions starts in v. 31 to v. 35, with the stars and constellations as object. Mankowski (2000: 143, n. 533) argues that the word øèÖî in v. 33 “need not be translated ‘authority’ but may simply mean ‘account, table, rationale, schedule’. i.e., that which a sh¯o.ter (øèåÖ) draws up. The schedule or account is the stars’ and constellations.” Verses 34 and 35 mention the meteorological phenomena clouds, water or rain, lightning and thunder again, but this time, diﬀerent from vv. 22–30, no reﬂection is oﬀered on their place or path, origin or end, but on the person who is guiding these phenomena. The ﬁnal section, vv. 36–38, opens with questions containing a threefold “who?”. In addition to these, the á + inﬁnitive construct in v. 38a constitutes the stretch of time, in which the main action of the “sticking together of the clods” in v. 38b takes place. The subject in v. 38 is not the earth (although most translations add this subject) as this noun does not occur in this section, but “the jars of heaven.” The contents of v. 38 are, however, diﬃcult to understand. I intend to demonstrate that an investigation of the text’s concepts as standing out on the cognitive domains in the prevalent culture, can elucidate this verse, as well as some of the text’s main conceptual features.

368

ellen van wolde 6. Cosmic views in Mesopotamia

In our present day view of the cosmos or universe it is only natural to make a distinction between heaven and earth. However, this is not as self-evident as it appears. The endless universe is in fact continuous and not split up in a heaven and an earth. Although the word pair “heaven and earth” is a merism which expresses the totality of all and everything, the choice for just these two terms is based on our cultural categorization of the universe in which we are educated and which we therefore conceive as self-evident. However, in the ancient Near East a very same “natural” categorization is at least tripartite: heaven, earth and underworld. This last level disappeared in our culture after the discovery of the global form of the earth, that is, the scientiﬁc discovery that there is nothing “underneath” our earth. Also the selfevident link between the dead and the underworld has disappeared in our days and has been transformed into an equally obvious connection between the dead and heaven, that is, somewhere above us. This is what categorization implies: it carves the world into categories that become a matter of course. However, it is not self-evident that one arranges the universe in levels, with regions and open spaces in between them. Why should the universe consist of levels anyway? Within this general categorization, a culture conceptualizes speciﬁc elements. Take, for example, the material the heaven is supposed to consist of. Ask people on the street in our western countries, and most people will answer this question with “air”: the heaven consists in their view of “sky” or “air”. However, in ancient Mesopotamia it is known for a fact that the heavens’ surfaces are made of stone (among others, the Lower Heavens are made of lapis lazuli which explains the sky blue color) and contain water. The tradition of watery heavens almost certainly derives from the observation that waters fell from the heavens in the form of precipitation (Horowitz 1998: 262). In his impressive book Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography Wayne Horowitz made an extensive study of Mesopotamian texts from all periods dealing with or referring to cosmic geography. And he demonstrated that in all kind of texts, from the earliest phases of cuneiform writing through the late period, the universe is conceived of as consisting of superimposed levels separated by open space (see ﬁgure 3, taken from Horowitz 1998: xii). The longest single surviving account of the building of the universe is found in the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, which is, in the form avail-

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

369

Figure 3

able to us, composed in the late second millennium (Horowitz 1998: 108).16 At the start of Enuma Elish, the universe is comprised of water. Only Apsu and Tiamat, the deiﬁed underground waters and deiﬁed waters of the sea, were in existence. The ﬁrst couplet explains that even heaven and earth did not exist at this early time. The evolution of the universe begins with the mixing of the waters of Apsu and Tiamat in Ee I 5–6 (Horowitz 1998: 109). The major construction project in Enuma Elish begins in Ee IV 135–146 and continues through Ee V 68. The building material is the corpse of Tiamat, and the architect and builder is Marduk (Horowitz 1998: 112). The cosmos at the end of tablet IV (Ee 145–146) consists of the waters of the heavens above (ˇsamû/ˇsam¯am¯u) and the waters of the Apsu below, and the level in between these waters, the Eˇsarra.17 Marduk’s construction project 16

A complete edition and translation of Enuma Elish is available in Foster (2003). “Ee IV 145–146, together with EeV 119–122, identify and locate Eˇsarra. In lines 145–146, Marduk assigns Eˇsarra to Enlil, the Heavens (ˇsam¯am¯u) to Anu, and the Apsu to Ea. Ee IV 138 states that the Heavens (ˇsam¯am¯u) are a cosmic ‘roof ’, so that Eˇsarra must be located below this level. In an analogous passage in Atrah. asis (Lambert-Millard Atra-hasis 42: 13–18), the same three gods divide the regions of the universe, with Anu ascending to heaven and Enki/Ea descending to the Apsu. Enlil is then left on the earth’s surface. In Ee IV 137–146, there is no earth’s surface for Enlil to occupy, so Enlil is sent to Eˇsarra, the region between the Heavens that belong to Anu, and the Apsu of Ea.” (Horowitz 1998: 113). 17

370

ellen van wolde

continues in Ee V 1–68: ﬁrstly, he arranges the stars, moon, and sun in the visible heavens, then, he provides the sources of fresh water in heaven and earth, and ﬁnally, he positions the cosmic bonds that hold the various features of the universe in place (Horowitz 1998: 114). The ﬁnal result in Enuma Elish is a cosmos that consists of three heavens and two earths. The heaven’s three levels are the Higher Heaven consisting of water, the Middle Heaven or Eˇsarra, that is, the level of the winds and the storms,18 and the Lower Heaven or visible sky with the sun, moon and stars and constellations (Horowitz 1998: 125–127). Hence, the level of winds (Middle Heaven) is conceived of as higher than the level of the stars (Lower Heaven), which is also expressed in the lines where Marduk on earth is said to be able to see as far as Eˇsarra, through the level of the stars (Horowitz 1998: 127).19 Apart from the three levels of heaven, two levels of earth are distinguished: the Upper Earth, where mankind lives with the city of Babylon located at its center, and the Middle Earth or Apsu, the water region where Ea reigns. No other god than Marduk resides permanently on the earth’s surface. The other gods travel to the earth’s surface from the heavens or the Apsu at the time of the assembly of the gods in Babylon (Horowitz 1998: 127). There is no Lower Earth or Underworld in Enuma Elish. No human beings die in the text, and the King and the Queen of the Underworld do not appear in the epic (Horowitz 1998: 125). In short, the cosmic regions in Enuma Elish are: the Heavens (ˇsamû/ˇsam¯am¯u), Eˇsarra, the Level of the Stars, Sun, and Moon, the Earth’s Surface, Apsu. In another tablet, KAR 307 30–38, a religious explanatory text which dates to the ﬁrst millennium and is written in Neo-Assyrian script from Assur, three sets of heavens and three earths are listed, while AO 8196 iv 20–22, a late astrological-astronomical tablet also from the ﬁrst millennium, lists the three heavens but does not list the earth (Horowitz 1998: 3–4, his translation). 18 Ee IV 41–50 suggests that Eˇsarra is the level of the winds and storms of Marduk and Ee IV 143–146 suggests that Eˇsarra is just above the level of the winds (Horowitz 1998: 113, n. 7). 19 The Lower Heavens or the visible heavens with the stars are extensively described in astronomical texts. The visible heavens are divided into paths (harr¯anu), and these paths refer to bands of the sky reaching from the eastern to western˘horizon (Horowitz 1998: 252). Both the Astrolabes and Mul-Apin divide the sky into three stellar paths that cross the sky from the eastern to the western horizon: a northern path belonging to Anu, a central path belonging to Enlil, and a southern path belonging to Ea. This system of dividing the sky into Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea was well known in the ﬁrst millennium (Horowitz 1998: 254).

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

371

KAR 307 30. The Upper Heavens are lulud¯an¯ıtu-stone. They belong to Anu. He settled the 300 Igigi inside. 31. The Middle Heavens are saggilmud-stone. They belong to the Igigi. Bel sat on the high dais inside, 32. in the lapis lazuli sanctuary. He made a lamp of electrum shine inside. 33. The Lower Heavens are jasper: They belong to the stars. He drew the constellations of the gods on them. 34. In the … of the Upper Earth, he lay down the spirits of mankind. 35. [In the ..]. of the Middle Earth, he settled Ea, his father. 36. […].. He did not let the rebellion be forgotten / identify rebellion. 37. [In the … of the Lowe]r Earth, he shut inside the 600 Anunnaki. 38. […]….[.in]side jasper. AO 8196 iv 20 The Upper Heavens are lulud¯an¯ıtu-stone. They belong to Anu. iv 21 The Middle Heavens are saggilmud-stone. They belong to the Igigi. iv 22 The Lower Heavens are jasper: They belong to the stars.

In both Enuma Elish and KAR 307 30–38, Marduk/Bel settles the god Ea in the Apsu, mankind on the earth’s surface, and groups of gods in heaven and earth. Both texts state that Marduk arranges the stars in heaven, and describe the three heavenly regions similarly. However, in KAR 307 30–38 three levels of the earth are distinguished, viz. the Upper Earth, the Middle Earth and the Lower Earth, whereas Enuma Elish does not mention the Lower Earth or Underworld. The Upper Earth is the earth’s surface where Marduk settles the spirits of mankind; the Middle Earth is the Apsu of Ea; and the Lower Earth is in KAR 307 the underworld, where 600 Anunnaki (the underworld gods) are imprisoned. I do not claim that the cosmic view in the books of the Hebrew Bible is exactly the same as that of ancient Mesopotamia. What I do want to argue is that in an ancient Near Eastern context the categorization of the universe into multiple heavenly and earthly levels is so self-evident, that it might be shared by texts in the Hebrew Bible too, that is to say, texts in the Hebrew Bible may assume such a cosmic view, implicitly or explicitly conﬁrm it or they may contrast to it.

372

ellen van wolde

Figure 4

7. Job 38’s Cosmic View Ch. 38 in the book of Job presupposes a certain cosmic view and the hypothesis I will defend here is that the six levels presented in Mesopotamian literature are also present in Job 38. Figure 4 is the summary of what I will try to demonstrate. It is widely accepted that ch. 38 consists of two parts that correspond to the division between earth and heaven: vv. 4–21 describe the earth and vv. 22–38 describe the heavens. From there on the opinions start to diverge. In my view, the ﬁrst main part regards the earth’s three levels: the ﬁrst level is the earth’s surface or the Upper Earth, presented in vv. 4–15; the second level is the subterranean water (íäú) or the Middle Earth, presented in v. 16; the third level, the underworld or Lower Earth, is presented in v. 17–18. The second main part reﬂects on the heavens’ three levels: wind and weather or the Middle Heaven in vv. 22–30, the stars and constellations in the Lower Heaven in vv. 31–35, and the hidden parts of heaven, that is, the High Heaven, in vv. 37–38. This division corresponds to and conﬁrms the earlier presented syntactic and semantic cohesion. The following textual elements make this hypothesis plausible.

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

373

The ﬁrst main part of Job 38 starts in vv. 4–6 with the foundation of the earth, its measurement, the sinking of its pillars and the setting of its corner stones. Although v. 6 does not explicitly indicate onto which these pillars were sunk, in ancient Mesopotamian views the pillars or foundations of the earth were sunk onto the Apsu or Middle Earth.20 This construction of the earth is in Job 38: 1–11 closely related to the hedging in of the waters. Contrary to those who argue that vv. 4–11 refers to two creations, viz. a creation of the earth (in vv. 4–6) and a creation of the sea (vv. 7–11), the syntactic cohesion of these verses shows that vv. 4–11 do not separate the two. Semantically, this is conﬁrmed by ancient Near Eastern material, which displays that the earth’s surface was thought to be basically circular in shape and that the sea was thought to be a cosmic ocean encircling the continental portion of the earth’s surface (Horowitz 1998: 334).21 In the Late Babylonian Flood Story (BE 39099) and probably also in the Old Babylonian Atrah. asis mention is made of “the bolt of the sea”, which may be a bolt on a water-lock that holds the waters of the sea in, similar to the way it is described in Job 38.22 This explains why in Job 38: 4–11 the sons 20 These include a number of passages where the foundations of temples reach down to Apsu, including Enki’s Journey to Nippur 21–22: “Temple, built of silver and lapis, whose foundation is fastened on the Apsu.” Parallels in ﬁrst-millennium Babylonia include the Sargon I inscription, where a quay wall in Babylon is placed in anzanunzû and passages in Late Babylonian royal inscriptions where foundations are placed by Apsu. In Assyria, the only attested example of foundations resting on the Apsu dates to the reign of Esarhaddon (KAH 127 vi): “above, its top (of the temple at Assur) reaches to heaven; below, its foundations are entwined in the Apsu.” (Horowitz 1998: 336–337). 21 See Horowitz (1998: 334): “The geographic terms kippat m¯at¯ati “circle of the lands”, kippat ers. eti “circle of earth”, kippat tubuq¯at erbetti “circle of the four corners”, kippat sˇar erbetti “circle of the four winds”, and kippat erbetti “circle of the four (regions)” (see CAD K 399 3), if understood literally, demonstrate that the earth’s surface was a circle.’ 22 Cf. Horowitz (1998: 326–327): “The sˇigaru nahbalu tâmti can be at least partially identiﬁed by examining the meanings of sˇigaru and ˘nahbalu. A sˇigaru is a bolt on a door. ˘ be a bolt on a water-lock that In the context of the sea, the sˇigaru nahbalu tâmti may ˘ holds the waters of the sea in place. Such a bolt (ˇsigaru) appears in the Late Babylonian ﬂood story twice in the context of the killing of the ‘guards of the sea’ (…) (LambertMillard, Atra-hasis 118:23–24, 120:39–40) (…) nahbalu tâmti ‘Net of the Sea’ seems to be ˘ if so, may be the name of the ‘bolt of a proper name rather than an actual object and, the sea’. Although the exact function of the sˇigaru nahbalu tâmti is not explained in the Mesopotamian ﬂood stories, it can be compared with˘ doors and a bar that hold the sea in place in the biblical book of Job 38: 8–11. (…) In this passage, the function of the bar and doors of the sea is to keep the waters of the sea within their bounds. The sˇigaru nahbalu tâmti was probably meant to serve the same purpose, since it is mentioned in ˘ connection with the ﬂood, a time when the normal restraints of the sea may have been removed.”

374

ellen van wolde

of God sing out of joy when the sea is hedged in, because it is an essential part of the primeval building of the earth, closely related as it is to the restraining of the waters of the cosmic ocean. Also the verses 12–15 relate to the earth. However, this time creation is not related to primeval times, but to the creation that takes place every day anew. Here again, creation (light) and limitation (the wicked are removed) go hand in hand. Subsequently, v. 16 locates the sources of the sea in the íäú or abyss and describes them as “the depths of the sea”, which is very similar to the Mesopotamian Apsu. In v. 17, the “gates of death” are introduced and related to “the gates of darkness.” In his profound study of úåîìö, Cohen (1996) demonstrates that “the meaning of úåîìö darkness should be understood in the Netherworld context, as a bonaﬁde epithet of the Netherworld meaning the ‘dark place’” (Cohen 1996: 300).23 Explicit proof of the fact that the place of death is conceived of as belonging to the region of the earth can be found in v. 18, where this place is referred to as “the expanses of the earth”. In Akkadian the term ers. etu rapaˇstu, the vast earth, is a common name for the underworld (Horowitz 1998: 278). Actually, the best-known features of the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia are its darkness and its gates. These gates lead from the approaches to the underworld into the interior of the region. In the ancient Mesopotamian cosmic view both the heavens have gates and the earth has gates and the earth’s gates are located in the underworld. The underworld gates, like those in heaven, were identical in structure to city gates on the earths’ surface. These gates consisted of many gate parts, including doors, door frames, bolts, locks, and keys. Here in

23 “There is obviously no diﬀerence between the parallelism úåîìö // úåî in Job 38:17 and the parallelism êùåç // ìåàù in Job 17:13. Finally, note that the use of the phrase úåîìö éøòù “gates of the ‘dark place’” in Job 38:17 has as its Biblical Hebrew precedent not only the parallel phrase úåî éøòù “gates of the Netherworld” in the very same verse, but also the other three verses where this imagery is found—ìåàù // úåî éøòù “gates of the Netherworld” (Isa 38:10; Ps 9:14; 107:18). While this biblical evidence is certainly suﬃcient, some additional Akkadian evidence from “The Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld” may also be cited. The Akkadian term b¯abu “gate”, the interdialectal equivalent of Biblical Hebrew øòù occurs no less than 23 times in the 138 preserved lines of this composition, in all cases referring to the (seven) gate(s) of the Netherworld. In view of this abundance of evidence both from Biblical Hebrew and from Akkadian, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Job 38:17 must be understood as an additional biblical literary allusion to the widespread Mesopotamian tradition concerning the Netherworld.” (Cohen 1996: 299–300).

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

375

vv. 16–18 exactly these two features are mentioned: the gates of death and the gates of death’s gloom. The verses 19–21 introduces the terms “dwelling place of the light” and “the place of darkness”, and refers to the way the sun goes to this dwelling place. In Mesopotamia, at the very place where the heavens and the earth touch each other, the gates are located through which the sun, moon and other stars ascend and descend, and this gate is called the “gate of Sunset” (Horowitz 1998: 281). Although conventionally the underworld is called the house of darkness, this does not mean that the underworld is always bereft of light. In a number of passages, the Sun-god passes through the underworld at night on his way under the earth’s surface from the western horizon to the eastern horizon. Because the dwelling of the sun in v. 19a is placed in a parallel position to the place of darkness in v. 19b, and because previously in vv. 17–18 this darkness is related to the Underworld, one can conclude that Job 38: 19–21 reﬂect on the Underworld or Lower Earth, too. In conclusion, the ﬁrst part of Job 38 (vv. 4–21) reﬂects on the creation of the earth in its full size. It starts with the foundation of the Upper Earth, that is, the earth’s surface including the seas surrounding the earth. In the prevalent cognitive view of the time these pillars were conceived of as sunk onto the Middle Earth or Apsu. Subsequently, some attention is paid to this íäú or abyss (Middle Earth) and to the Lower Earth or Underworld. Reference is made to the gates of death and its darkness -these are the Underworld’s main characteristics- and to the expanses of the earth. And also a connection is laid between this underworld and the dwelling places of light and darkness, which suits the ancient Mesopotamian view of the underworld. In the second main part of Job 38 (vv. 22–38) on the heavens, the meteorological phenomena are described separately from the constellations. The vaults of snow and vaults of hail are placed in their own local environments.24 The light or lightning in v. 24 and the thunderstorm in v. 25 are believed to follow their own paths, the east wind is scattered over the earth according to its own rules and the torrents follow their own channels. The word êøã is three times used, with regard to the path of the sun in v. 19, with regard to the path of the light(ning) in v. 24 and with regard to the paths of the thunderstorm in v. 25. Widespread in Mesopotamian literature and astronomy is the system See, for example, the Assyrian tile in the British Museum (BM 115706) with the bags of hail and snow hanging under the vault of heaven. 24

376

ellen van wolde

for describing the geography of the sky in terms of “paths of the heavens”. “The division of the visible heavens into paths (h. arr¯anu) is the most common system in astronomical texts. In these texts, the term usually refers to bands of the sky reaching from the eastern to western horizon.” (Horowitz 1998: 252).25 Because this division is so common in the ancient Near East, it is possible or even plausible that this is also the cognitive domain against which Job 38: 19–25 stands out. Once more, the Mesopotamian categorization of the heavens into three levels, the Higher Heaven, the Middle Heaven and the Lower Heaven, proves to be instructive for the understanding of Job 38, because the winds and weather phenomena are conceived of as parts of the Middle Heaven, and, therefore, contrary to our conceptualization, as belonging to a level above the stars and constellations. The stars and constellations in the Lower Heavens are presented in vv. 31–35 as bound by their own bonds. Their’s are the laws of heaven and they set their own schedule on earth. What kind of bonds do these verses suggest? In Enuma Elish tablet V, 65–68, reference is made to a similar kind of bonds: after Marduk ﬁnished his creation of the universe “he inspected: heaven and earth are …, […] their bonds … twined. After he designed his rites, made his rule[es,] he then cast down the [lead]-ropes, he made Ea take them” (Horowitz 1998: 119). From this moment onwards Ea is the guardian of the lead-ropes, which keep the heaven and the earth on its place (Horowitz 1998: 120). A number of other texts refer to the cosmic bonds, including “bonds” (riksu, markasu), “lead-ropes”(s. erretu), and the “great bond” (durm¯ahu), which secure the ˘ mention is made of heavens in place (Horowitz 1998: 265). In BM 78161 lines that are established in the sky by joining stars to form qû “ropes” (Horowitz 1998: 256, n. 15). For more detailed information on ropes and bonds between stars and constellations I refer to Horowitz’s book. 25 Horowitz (1998: 252–254) continues: “Both the ‘Astrolabes’ and Mul-Apin divide the sky into three stellar paths that cross the sky from the eastern to western horizon: a northern path belonging to Anu, a central path belonging to Enlil, and a southern path belonging to Ea. The Moon and Sun-gods use similar paths, called ‘The Path of Sin’ and ‘The Path of Shamash,’ on their way across the sky (…). The ‘Astrolabes’ and star-catalogue of Mul-Apin (Mul-Apin I I 1-ii 35) list Anu, Enlil, and Ea-stars that travel along the Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea over the course of the year. These paths are also mentioned in many other astronomical and astrological texts where, on occasion, the positions of astronomical phenomena are deﬁned in terms of the Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea-stars. (…) This demonstrates that Mesopotamian astronomers used the Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea to locate heavenly bodies in the sky, just as modern astronomers use degrees of latitude and longitude.”

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

377

The strongest proof for the multi-levelled view of the universe represented in Job 38, is, in my view, the ﬁnal section, vv. 37–38. So far, most studies I know of have not been able to explain this text within the book of Job and in the Hebrew Bible. However, in reference to the categorization of the universe into six levels, these verses can be explained. In Job 38, it is remarkable that all heavenly phenomena are characterized by water: the weather in vv. 25–30 all deal with water, the laws of heaven related to the stars in vv. 31–35 reign on the order of clouds and the abundance of water, and in vv. 36–38, heaven is characterized as “the jars of heaven” or “the bottles of heaven”. In addition to that, this heaven is referred to as “the hidden parts of heaven”, the same description of the invisible or Higher Heaven in Mesopotamian texts. The answer to the raised question “Who can tilt the jars of heaven?” is clear, only God can, that is, the Hebrew God corresponding to Anu of High Heaven in ancient Mesopotamia. The very last verse, v. 38, should therefore not be translated with “the earth melts into dust” (because it refers back to the jars of heaven in the previous verse), but with: “when soil was poured into a mould, the clods stuck together”. The ﬁrst clause with the inﬁnitive construct ú÷öá constitutes the time frame, in which the action of sticking together took place. The question is to what the pouring of soil might refer. The image this verse presupposes is very similar to that presented in The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk. There, the creation of the lands is described as follows (see Horowitz 1998: 131): Marduk wove a raft on the face of the waters He created dirt/soil and poured it on the raft. (CT 13 36: 17–18)

Thus, the lands are described as the result of Marduk’s pouring of soil on a raft ﬂoating on top of waters. The corresponding usage of the words “pour” and “soil” and the similar image conveyed in CT 13 36 and in Job 38: 38 express the idea that in primordial times, when the heavenly jars were poured out, the clods of soil that form the lands were glued or stuck together. Thus, the collocation “the jars of heaven” in the ﬁnal scene of ch. 38 describes the Higher Heaven’s primordial activities. The lack of a subject in the inﬁnitive construct show at the same time a distinction: no Marduk is mentioned in Job 38: 38 as in The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk, it is de-deiﬁed. Which brings me to a ﬁnal remark.

378

ellen van wolde

So far I have referred only to similarities in the cosmic view of Job 38 and the Mesopotamian cosmic view. One main diﬀerence should be noticed too. Whereas in the Meopotamian literature the creator God is called Marduk, and various Gods reign in the various regions of the universe, there is only one God in Job 38 who governs the creation of all the levels of the universe, commands the various schedules and rules of its regions, and monitors it all. 8. Conclusion: Wisdom in Job 38 and in Job 28 What does this tell us about wisdom? Job 38 shows that each of the six levels of the universe testiﬁes to its own wisdom. The “inhabitants” of the three heavens act according to their characteristics and their rules: the constellations in the Lower Heaven know their schedules, the winds in the Middle Heaven know their paths and channels, the jars of heaven in the Higher Heaven are poured according to their own wisdom. All heavenly phenomena know of no parents and know of no death. In contrast, the “inhabitants” of the three earthly levels have a beginning and an ending. On earth, diﬀerentiation is discernible on every level. It is God who made these distinctions, who put his rules, or allowed the phenomena their own rules and schedules. This is a major diﬀerence between the ancient Mesopotamian literature which takes the existence of a multitude of gods for granted, and Job 38 with only one God who governs the creation and the sustenance of all levels in the universe. God measured the earth and sunk its pillars, he limited the sea, he knows of creation in primeval times and of creation every day anew, and he masters life and deprivation of light. He can go to the abyss and to the underworld, he masters death in general and in particular, he knows of every day’s appearance and disappearance of the light. He can go to the vaults of snow and reserve it for times of war, he can let the rain fall on deserts where no human being lives. He can bind the bonds of the constellations and can command their various schedules. He can tilt the jars of heaven. He is the steward who monitors it all. But he does not represent a simple view on wisdom. In contrast to Job’s simple views in ch. 28 which testify of a monocultural bias, ch. 38 indicates that God opts for biodiversity on every level. He speaks of diversity, dynamic complexes and variable processes in almost every line of his speech. His creation turns out not only to be an action performed at the beginning but to happen every day. The metaphor

towards an “integrated approach” in biblical studies

379

of the cylinder that, when rolled on clay, lets a picture emerge; it evokes an image of the sun which brings everything to light and life and arouses it from death and non-existence. Thus created anew, an immense diversity is manifest both in the cosmos and on earth. God’s speech exhibits speciﬁcity, variety and sustainability, that is, biodiversity both in life and in death. No general wisdom is defended or a general rule that explains it all. Life (and death) is no monoculture. Returning to Job 28 again, its simpliﬁcation becomes even more obvious. It represents the idea that wisdom can be reduced to an entity or to one answer. However, the fear of the Lord mentioned at the end of Job 28 does not necessitate monoculture. Biodiversity in an everchanging world and universe can inspire more awe and respect in us than a simple general rule or monoculture can do.

Bibliography Aitken, J.K. (2003), “Lexical Semantics and the Cultural Context of Knowledge in Job 28, Illustrated by the Meaning of h. ¯aqar"”, in: E.J. van Wolde (ed.), Job 28. Cognition in Context, Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 64. (Leiden: Brill), pp. 119–138. Cohen, C. (1996), “The meaning of úåîìö ‘Darkness’: A Study in Philological Method”, in: M.V. Fox et. al. (eds), Texts, Temples, and Traditions. A Tribute to Menahem Haran (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns), pp. 287–312. Colbow, G. (1997), “More Insights into Representations of the Moon God: The Third and Second Millennnium B.C.”, in: I.L. Finkel and M.J. Geller (eds), Sumerian Gods and their Representations (Groningen), pp. 19–31. Collon, D. (1992), “The Near Eastern Moon God” in: D.J.W. Meijer (ed.), Natural Phenomena. Their Meaning, Depiction and Description in the Ancient Near East (Amsterdam: KNAW), pp. 19–38. Dirven, R., Verspoor, M. (1998), Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics Cognitive Linguistics in Practice (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins). Foster, B.R. (2003), “Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish)”, in: W.W. Hallo (ed.), The Context of Scripture, Vol. 1 (Leiden, Boston: Brill), pp. 390–402. Geller, S.A. (1987), “‘Where Is Wisdom?’: A Literary Study of Job 28 in Its Settings.” In: J. Neusner, B.A. Levine, E.S. Frerichs (eds.). Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press (pp 155–188) (Reprinted in revised form in: Geller, S.A., Sacred Enigmas: Literary Religion in the Hebrew Bible (London/New York: Routledge), (pp 87–107, 207–213).) Harder, P. (1999), “Function, Cognition, and Layered Clause Structure”, in: J. Allwood and P. Gärdenfors (eds), Cognitive Semantics. Meaning and Cognition Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series, vol. 55 (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins), pp. 37–66.

380

ellen van wolde

Hecke, P.J.P. Van (2003), “Searching for and Exploring Wisdom. A CognitiveSemantic Approach to the Hebrew Verb h. ¯aqar in Job 28”, in: E.J. van Wolde (ed.), Job 28. Cognition in Context Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 64 (Leiden: Brill), pp. 139–162. Heijden, M.G.A. van der, Sanders, R. (eds) (2002), Mycorrhizal Ecology, Series: Ecological Studies, 157 (Springer). Kamp, A. (2004), Inner Worlds. A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to the Book of Jonah, Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 68 (Leiden/Boston: Brill). Langacker, R.W. (1987), Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 1, Theoretical Prerequisites (Stanford: Stanford University Press). ——— (1991), Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 2, Descriptive Application (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Mankowski, P.V. (2000), Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew Harvard Semitic Studies, vol. 47 (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns). Rothenberg, B. (1972), Timna. Valley of the Biblical Copper Mines (London: Thames and Hudson). ——— (1978), “Timna”, in: M. Avi-Yonah, E. Stern, (eds). Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Taylor, J. (19952), Linguistic Categorization. Prototypes in Linguistic Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press =Oxford: Clarendon Press 19891). ——— (2002), Cognitive Grammar. An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Vall, G., “‘From Whose Womb Did the Ice Come Forth?’ Procreation Images in Job 38:28–29”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 57 (1995), pp. 504–513. Wolde, E.J. van, (2003), “Wisdom, Who Can Find it? A Non-Cognitive and Cognitive Study of Job 28: 1–11”, in: E.J. van Wolde (ed.), Job 28. Cognition in Context Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 64 (Leiden: Brill), pp. 1–36. Yri, K.M. (1998), My Father Taught Me How to Cry, but Now I Have Forgotten. The Semantics of Religious Concepts with an Emphasis on Meaning, Interpretation and Translatability Dissertation Oslo (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press).

appendix Session ‘World Christianity and the Study of the Old Testament’

READING THE PENTATEUCH AS COUNTER-TEXT A NEW INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 1:14–19*

J. Severino Croatto When reading the account of the creation of the stellar universe in Genesis 1:14–19, the question arises why the sun, the moon and the stars have been created on the fourth day. Furthermore, since this account is so lengthy—that about the creation of the earth is much shorter—the passage must hide or reveal matters of great interest not only to the author of this account, but also to the redactor of the book. As will be argued, the passage of Genesis 1:14–19 is a short myth about the establishment of the solar calendar, with the fourth day, the middle of the week, as its central axis. The moon is important in so much as it denotes the weekly order, but the appearance of the stars on the fourth day demonstrates that it is important to authenticate the archetype of the solar calendar. The “greater light” (the sun) always takes precedence. Where there is an allusion to the functions of the sun and the moon, the subject of the calendar is involved. 1. The account of the establishment of the ﬁxed solar calendar The subject of the calendar is vital in all religious cosmic vision, given that it is related to the sacred times and the festivals and, naturally, with the order of human activity.1 The feast days, and the rites especially, are precisely indicated in the calendar. A change of date can have signiﬁcant implications, as exempliﬁed by Jeroboam’s decision regarding the

* Prof. J. Severino Croatto, may he rest in peace, passed away on 26 April 2004. His draft paper was retrieved from his study by Christina Conti, his wife, and edited by Dr. Paul Almada. The English translation of this paper was done by Louise McLaren in consultation with Dr. Timothy Lim. 1 Compare J.S. Croatto, Experiencia de lo sagrado y tradiciones religiosas. Estudio de fenomenología de la religión (Estella, 2002), pp. 235.328; id., Los lenguajes de la experiencia religiosa. Estudio de Fenomenología de la Religión (Buenos Aires, 1994), pp. 236ﬀ.

384

j. severino croatto

Feast of the Tabernacle (IKings 12:32 f. versus Leviticus 23:34, 39), or by certain passages from Qumran.2 It is certain now—above all due to the Qumran texts—that in Israel some groups of the community used a ﬁxed solar calendar, in which the days of the week coincided every year with the same dates. In this universal calendar—of 12 months of 30 days, but 31 days in months III, VI, IX and XII = in total 364 days—the feast days are ﬁxed and the 1/I (ﬁrst day of the ﬁrst month) is considered logically to be (the festival of the) new year. Moreover, with regard to the weekly order, the new year falls on a Wednesday, the same day as Easter and other festivals. The months do not derive from the phases of the moon, nor do they start with the novilunio,3 as in Mesopotamia.4 Rather, the week is taken as the basis, with thirteen weeks calculated for each season or, conversely, each season comprising thirteen weeks (91 days), for which two months of thirty days and one of thirty-one days are required, and this pattern is repeated four times over.5 We have the conﬁrmation of this pattern in The Book of Jubilees (second half of the 2nd century BC), not far in time from the ﬁnal writings of the Pentateuch, and contemporary to the principal texts of Qumran that bear the same calendar. In Jubilees 6:23, 29 we read, And on the new moon of the ﬁrst month, and on the new moon of the fourth month, and on the new moon of the seventh month, and on the new moon of the tenth month are the days of remembrance, festive days also, marking the four divisions of the year: these are written and ordained as a testimony for ever (6:23)

2 See, e.g., CD VI:18–19: “…to keep the sabbath day according to the exact interpretation, and the festivals and the day of fasting, according to what they had discovered, those who entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Qumran texts in English. Wilfred G.E. Watson Translator [Leiden, 1994], p. 37). Compare also 1QS I:14–15 (“its periods, its festivals”); X:5; 1QH XI:6–8. 3 As in I Samuel 20:5, 18, 29, 34; neomenia, the feast at the new moon, is mentioned many times (Isaiah 1:13–14; Hosea 2:13; Amos 8:4–6, etc.). 4 The basis of the lunar calendar is clear in this passage of the Enuma eliˇ s: ‘The Moon he caused to shine, the night (to him) entrusting. He appointed him a creature of the night to signify the days: “Monthly, without cease, form designs with a crown. At the month’s very start, rising over the land, Thou shalt have luminous horns to signify six days. On the seventh day be thou a [half]-crown. At full moon stand in opposition in mid-month. When the sun [overtakes] thee at the base of heaven, Diminish [thy crown] and retrogress in light”’ (V:12–20). Translation from James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1950), pp. 67–68. 5 Months III, VI, IX and XII therefore have 31 days.

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

385

There is an interval of thirteen weeks between each feast and the next, from the ﬁrst to the second, from the second to the third, and from the third to the fourth. This makes all ﬁfty-two weeks, and together they make up a complete year: thus it is engraved and ordained on the heavenly tablets. An no year exceeds it. (6:29b–31).6

This passage aﬃrms that the start of each season is so signiﬁcant—it is always a fourth day!—that it was changed to a festival. However, the seasons are regulated by the sun and not the moon. Perhaps the reference to the “seasons” (mô #¯adîm) in Genesis 1:14b is related to this. To translate the term as “festival”7 would not be lexically correct (h. ag is the appropriate term8) and leaves unclear an important element of the annual calendar. The fourth day of the week is, in reality, the medial day in a septenary system, like that of Genesis 1. However, the fact that it is situated in the middle implies an inﬂection (backwards, downwards, depending on how it was started). If the ﬁrst half is suﬀering (remember the middle week of Daniel 9:27), in the middle the return to peace begins, and by the end peace is fully restored. This is why the “birth” of the sun is symbolically placed (in a mythical or ritual sense) in the winter solstice, because from this position it begins its circuit.9 It is for this reason, it seems, that the creation of the stars—that regulate the life of the cosmos, as well as the calendar and its festivals—is moved to the fourth day in the narration of Genesis 1. The careful noting of the dates in Jubilees, in some texts of the Qumran community and in priestly writings in the Bible, is an indication that they are highly signiﬁcant.10 The “actions” of the protagonists, 6 Translation of R.H. Charles revised by C. Rabin, ‘Jubilees’ in H.F.D. Sparks (ed.) The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford, 1984). 7 BJ: “solemnidades”. 8 Note that in Ezekiel 46:11 the two terms are distinguished. 9 In the southern hemisphere the winter solstice is in June, and not in December, which means that we completely lose the symbolism of Christmas as the festival superseded by that of the “Sol Invictus” which is celebrated in Rome. The entire liturgical cycle is dislocated in this hemisphere. 10 This question, that was discussed with fervour in the ﬁfties and the beginning of the sixties, is taken up once again more recently by G.J. Wenham, “Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” VT 28 (1978), pp. 336–348; id., “The Origin, Character, and Early History of the 364-Day Calendar: A Reassessment of Jaubert’s Hypotheses”, CBQ 41 (1979), pp. 390–411; R.T. Beckwith, “The Signiﬁcance of the Calendar for Interpreting Essene Chronology and Eschatology”, Revue de Qumran 10 no. 38 (1980), pp. 167–202; W. Wifall, “God’s Accession Year According to P”, Biblica 62 (1981), p. 532; J.M. Baumgarten, “Some Problems of the Jubilees Calendar in Current Research”,

386

j. severino croatto

for example, show they observe Saturday as a special day; or certain important events take place on the ﬁrst day of the week (the day of light in Genesis 1:3–5, and also Sunday) and above all the fourth (Wednesday = the new year). The best place to demonstrate this, within the Bible, is the “priestly” passages of the story of the ﬂood, textually concurrent to the cosmological passage.11 Below is the solar calendar as a guide: I IV VII X

II V VIII XI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

29 30 1 2 3 4 5

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

III VI IX XII 27 28 29 30 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

= 4th (Wednesday) = 5th (Thursday) = 6th (Friday) = 7th (Saturday) = 1st (Sunday) = 2nd (Monday) = 3rd (Tuesday)

There are, however, 29 days in each lunar calendar month12—matching the phases of the moon—and as it is necessary that it should correlate with the solar cycle, the days vary, for example, in relation to the start of the year. The annual variation of the date of ro’ˇs haˇssˇanâ in Judaism today conﬁrms this.

VT 32 (1982), pp. 485–489. One spectacular conﬁrmation of the use of said calendar for the community of Qumran, is text 4Q252, recently studied by T.H. Lim, “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran text (4Q252),” JJS 43 (1992), pp. 288– 298. The relevance of this text lies in the fact that it gives the precise dates of all the episodes of the ﬂood and it indicates each time which day of the week it is (month +day of the month +day of the week); for example, the passage of Genesis 8:13–14 is read like this: “in the year 601 of the life of Noah, in the 17th day of the 2nd month the earth dried up, on the ﬁrst (day) after Saturday (=Sunday)” (column II:1–2). See also Ida Fröhlich, “‘Narrative Exegesis’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in: M.E. Stone—Esther G. Chazon (eds), Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden, 1998), pp. 81–99 (bibl. for 4Q252 on p. 82). 11 See Croatto, Exilio y sobrevivencia. Tradiciones contracuturales en el Pentateuco (Comentario de Genesis 4:1–12:9) ( Buenos Aires, 1997), pp. 226–228, 245, 252–256 and 284. 12 Astronomically, 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3.33 seconds, with a total of 364 days in the year. An example of the numbering of the days in the lunar calendar is the following text from Nippur: “The month of Gudsisu, after the 13th day: 2 days, to …; 1 day, reeds; 2 days, to tie (?) (reed) cables; 1 day, laundring clothes; 1 day, working in the house; 1 day, for/to the temple. There are 7 days left” (The total is 28 days). See M. Civil, “Daily Chores in Nippur,” JCS 32 (1980), p. 229 (the author assumes a month of 29 days, but this register indisputably annotates only 28, and there is no reason given).

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

387

Since the solar calendar is ﬁxed in relation to the days of the week, when the day of this or that month is referred to, it always aﬀects the week. Saying “the 1st of month I” in the framework of the lunar calendar tradition signiﬁes that this day is a neomenia, whatever the day of the week is; said in reference to the ﬁxed solar calendar tradition, however, it indicates in essence that this is a Wednesday, a highly signiﬁcant day, and the relationship with the moon has to be relinquished. In turn, and in order of their importance, the relevant days are usually Sunday (the start of all activity), Friday (the end of the working week or preparation for Saturday) and Wednesday, the fourth day, centre of the week and day of all essential creation. In the approach explained below we will come to realise that when a day of a month is mentioned, it usually coincides with one of the three listed above, with few exceptions. This is a sign of the intention to direct the meaning of the text so that it is interpreted within the bounds of the solar calendar model. This indicates that the text is intended to be interpreted with the solar calendar model as its setting. Then, if the solar calendar was in use, with a trace of resistance against the oﬃcial calendar of Jerusalem, and if it was also considered to be vitally important, it is logical that there should be some founding account relating to its establishment. The most important account, the ultimate account, is the myth. For example, the myth we are studying in this paper, Genesis 1:14–19. This passage therefore is to be seen as the hieros logos of the ﬁxed solar calendar, which is later put into practice in several passages. 2. The relationship of the text with other traditions within the Pentateuch If we look through the priestly traditions in the Pentateuch, we have the following signiﬁcant dates:13 (1) The creation of the stars (that regulate the calendar) occurs on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14–19). 13 E. Otto is incorrect when he observes “Dt 4,16b–19a legt aber im wörtlichen Zitat Genesis 1,14–17 aus”; see his “Forschungen zum nachpriesterschriftlichen Pentateuch,” ThR 67 [2002], p. 132), with a reference to M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation (Oxford, 1985), pp. 321 f. In fact, the vocabulary of Genesis 1:14–19 is not used in the passage of Deuteronomy, and the idea of worshipping the stars is not foremost.

388

j. severino croatto

(2) Enoch, placed seventh in the genealogical list of 5:1–32 as is his partner Enmeduranki in the Royal Accounting List, is related to the solar circle: his whole life lasts 365 days, that is, one solar year. His two ﬁgures are 65 + 300 (verses 21–24), evidently situating the solar circle within the context of the Mesopotamian sexagesimal system. The fact that the tradition of Enoch is important is explained in Jubilees, which without doubt uses the ﬁxed solar calendar, and not only that, but it speaks of his revelation to Moses on Sinai (6:23–38). In reference to Enoch, its says, And he wrote down in a book details about the signs of heaven according to the order of their months, so that men might know the seasons of the years according to the order of their several months (Jub 4:17).

The ﬁrst days of months I, IV, VII and X—always a fourth day, a Wednesday!—were forever established as important festivals, and they are indeed still important today … They were written and ﬁxed as follows on the celestial tablets … Three hundred and sixty-four days; and these shall make up a complete year. And they shall not change the times of its days or its feasts … and they shall not leave out any day or pass over any feast (Jub 6:32).14

These details in Jubilees have their roots in the tradition of Genesis 5:21– 24, and they prolong that tradition. But in Genesis itself the ﬁgure of Enoch occupies a privileged place (the seventh) in the genealogical list. Its ﬁgures, in turn, separate them from the model of the other characters (based on the sexagesimal system)15 and have to do with the solar circle. This fact is highly signiﬁcant. In general, the preoccupation with the ﬁxed calendar is explicit in Jubilees and is expressed, a) by the indication of the day of the month of numerous episodes that run from the beginning of humanity to Sinai (50 jubilees); b) from the beginning to the end of the book, the account of the division of the days; and c) by the express instruction, in the case of some festivals like Easter, not to move the dates, as would happen under the lunar calendar.16 14

Translation by Charles and Rabin, “Jubilees”. See Croatto, Exilio y sobrevivencia, Tradiciones contraculturales en el Pentateuco, pp. 79–113 (compare pp. 108f.). 16 In reference to Passover it says “observe it … on its appointed day, in accordance with all its regulations; and do not change its date, either from one day to another, or from one month to another. For it is a rule for all time, and it is written on the heavenly tablets … for it is decreed for ever” (49, 7–8). 15

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

389

(3) The Flood lasts one solar year. The ﬂood lasted from the 17/II of Noah’s 600th year (Genesis 7:6,11), which was a Sunday, until the 27/II of his 601st (8:13,14), a Wednesday. In the MT the total ﬁgure is 374 days, which seems strange at ﬁrst. Is it like this in order to make it a Wednesday, day of creation, day of the new year, of birth? The LXX, who also know this date for the end of the ﬂood, put its beginning back to 27/II/600, giving a total of 364. What stands out is the case of 4Q252, a text that ends the ﬂood on the expected date (17/II/ 601), explains that it is “a complete year” (ˇsnh tmymh [ii:2 f.]) and counts in numbers (“365 days” [ii:3]).17 (4) It is known that Exodus 40 describes the erection and consecration of the tabernacle using the “order-execution” model of Genesis 1. The tabernacle is eﬀectively a microcosm. However, in 40:1 (ordered) and 17 (accomplished), it is precisely indicated that that event must take place on 1/I. From a conventional standpoint, this serves as proof that it is the beginning of the year. That is true. But if it is read according to the solar calendar, this date is also a Wednesday, that is, the central day of the week (the fourth, like in Genesis 1:14–19), which reinforces the creational symbolism we just highlighted. (5) The book of Numbers opens with an order from the Lord to Moses to carry out the great census of the Israelites. This order takes place on 1/II, which in the solar calendar is a Friday. The Lord never speaks on a Saturday! Later on, the second Easter is celebrated, naturally, on a Tuesday at night (14/I) and Wednesday all day (Numbers 9:1–5). The precise date on which they set out from Sinai is of great signiﬁcance, 20/II in the second year after leaving Egypt, which means a Wednesday (10:11). A Sunday would have been simply “after Saturday”, but this event, parallel to that of the Exodus, has another dimension, and that is why it is set on a Wednesday, the new day, of creation. (6) The order in Numbers 28:11 catches our attention: “The ﬁrst days of the month you shall oﬀer a burnt oﬀering to the Lord …”. It is common to understand the start of the month as “neomenias” or “new moons”, and compare it with Isaiah 1:13 and Amos 8:5, for example. But three dates stand out: See Croatto, Exilio y sobrevivencia, pp. 247–248. The ﬁgure 365 means inserting a day after the usual 364. 17

390

j. severino croatto

(a) The initial formula ber¯a"ˇsê h. odˇsêkem (lit. “at the beginnings of your months”), does not include any reference to the neomenias; rather, it cancels out the meaning of “neomenia” for h. odeˇs (here and therefore in v. 14b), since the expression “at the beginning of your neomenias” does not make sense as neomenias last one day. (b) If we read the rule using the framework of the solar calendar, a concealed but highly relevant date appears: the beginning of months I-IV-VII-X always fall on a Wednesday, as we have already seen many times; in months II-V-VIII-XI it is always a Friday, and on months III-VI-IX-XII, always a Sunday. Therefore, is it not important that the beginnings of the months should always be the three most important days in the texts? (c) The beginnings of the months never fall on a Saturday (see before, at the end of point 3.) (7) The calendar of festivals in Numbers 28:16–29:39 indicates with precision the day and month of each festival, just like in Leviticus 23 (see below). Also the “day of trumpet blasts” (t erû #â) of 29:1, equivalent to that of Leviticus 23:24–25, has a ﬁxed place in the calendar, the 1/IV, a Wednesday. (8) In the priestly account of Numbers 33 (itinerary of the journey in the desert), there are two calendar dates: (a) As in Exodus 12:37–42, though it is better described here, the Exodus from Egypt took place on 5/I, that is, the same Wednesday as the Easter festival.18 Therefore, a Wednesday, a day that is tremendously signiﬁcant for a “creational” event such as that of the Exodus. (b) Aaron died on 1/V (33:38). Why are we given this information? In the lunar calendar, it would have no symbolic connotation. In the ﬁxed solar calendar it is a Friday, the day before the Saturday. It is the texts of the priestly accounts themselves that highlight these questions about the calendar. Furthermore, in Genesis, the duration of creation (1:1–2:3), which is a week long, and the new beginning (6–9), one year long, is symbolically important.

18

V. 3a is speciﬁc; v. 3b (mimmoh. or¯at happesah. ) should not be translated as “on the day

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

391

The solar calendar must have remained valid in what we might call traditionalist circles. However it is better to understand them as “counterculturally resistant”, like those in Genesis 1–11 in the context of the Mesopotamian inﬂuences, or those who, in Qumran, were opposed to the oﬃcial Judaism of Jerusalem and to the Hellenistic inter-culturation. In the midrash of the ﬂood, in 4Q252, the preoccupation for the ﬁxed solar calendar is explicit, just as it is in the midrash of Abraham, known since its publication as the Genesis Apocryphon. Here, the journeys of the patriarch are carefully recorded using the ﬁxed solar calendar, and therefore they begin after Saturday and end before Saturday. 3. The code of the festivals of Leviticus 23 If this is true, it would be opportune to consider why in the Pentateuch —and especially in Leviticus—the festivals are assigned an exact day within the calendar. If time was regulated according to the lunar calendar, as is generally sustained, determining the dates would not only be done for obvious reasons—all rules must be precise—but also for cultural and ideological reasons, like to negate the “other” calendar. In that case, the references to the solar calendar in the account of the ﬂood etc. would not merely be fossil residues of a tradition that stayed submerged by other preoccupations. A religious text that is so ideologically charged could not have let residues of a more ancient but contrary tradition past. It would have ﬁltered them carefully. We suspect that it is just the reverse. What we began to show about the apparently invisible, but in reality notable, presence of the solar calendar in the two accounts of creation—the cosmogony and the ﬂood—and what we have determined to be counter-cultural in 4–11,19 conﬁrm that in reality the calendar of the festivals in Leviticus is following the solar calendar instead of the lunar one as is always aﬃrmed. The ﬁrst sign is that such dates are never connected to the appearance or the phases of the moon; only the day of this or that month is indicated. The second indication is the fact that numbers never appear

after Easter”—which would lead us to understand the 16th—rather “on the day after [the beginning of] Easter”, since the festival starts on the 14th and lasts through the 15th. 19 See Croatto, Exilio y sobrevivencia. Tradiciones contraculturales en el Pentateuco.

392

j. severino croatto

on the lunar calendar.20 The third is that the location of the dates, recorded for example in Leviticus, reveal highly signiﬁcant details when read in light of the solar calendar. Leviticus 23:5 Leviticus 23:24 Leviticus 23:27 Leviticus 23:34.39

Easter New Year? Atonement Tabernacles

15/I 1/VII 10/VII 15/VII

Wednesday Wednesday Friday Wednesday

One can understand that the Atonement should take place before a Saturday, day of rest. The other three festivals take place on a Wednesday, which is the most important day, as we are trying to prove in many ways. The importance of the day of the month would not be recognised if using the lunar calendar, in which the day of the week varies from year to year (like in the Jewish and Christian liturgical calendar). The precise pinpointing of the day of a given month for the festivals implies therefore that it is related each time with a “signiﬁcant” day of the week, as can be proven using the ﬁxed solar calendar each time there is such a date. Easter has a profound sense of “beginning”, and all that is initial is connected with the primordial and creational. Wednesday therefore suits it well. Which festival is it that is in Leviticus 23:24? It does not have a name, but is speciﬁed in v. 24b with dense, important words: “you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation (ˇsabbatôn zikrôn t erû #â miqr¯a’qodeˇs)”.21 Commemoration of what? Everything implies that it refers to a festival equivalent, namely to that of the New Year, but not with that name, because it would also be connected to the traditions of the 20 The name of the month of Abib only appears in Deuteronomy 16:1 (two times), but the emphasis is on the date of the exit from Egypt. In Exodus 12:2, on the other hand, at the start of the account of Passover it is said, “this month will be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the ﬁrst month of the year for you.” There is a reiteration of and emphasis on certain words. A little further on, it is insisted that the month of Abib is the month of the Exodus from Egypt (13:4, “This day you are to go forth, in the month of Abib.”; 34:18, “for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt”). In any case, Abib is not the Babylonian name (abu, Hebrew "ab), which is also that of the second month, rather it is a name of Canaanite origin. 21 The term sˇabbatôn does not refer to Saturday: 1) it is not the term that is used for Saturday 2) it is impossible, in the lunar calendar, that 1/VII to always fall on a Saturday; as we know, the cycle rotates.

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

393

empire of the time. Nonetheless, it continues to be celebrated. In such a case, ﬁxing the month as VII is highly signiﬁcant. One would naturally think it was month I. But here is the question. Month VII is exactly six months from month I, due to the solar cycle of solstices and equinoxes. The imposition of the Babylonian lunar calendar—which would not have been a simple Mesopotamian “inﬂuence” but an imperial imposition—created disharmony between the calendar and the agricultural and seasonal cycle in the Mediterranean region (speciﬁcally in Juda, later Y ehûd). It is understood that in Mesopotamia the New Year started in the months of March and April (nisannu), after the winter and before the heat waves of the summer. There, the New Year precisely marked the beginning of the agrarian cycle, after the fertilising ﬂooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it was not like that in Canaan on the Mediterranean coast, where by March and April the rains had already stopped and the hot, barren season had already started. In that region, the rains were what regulated the agrarian life, and they began in September or October. If the imposed year started—with month I—in an inappropriate season from all points of view, the “festival” of the beginning of month VII is explained. It was a return to the normal calendar, probably the calendar of ancient times. Furthermore, this explains why it has no name. In the text, it sounds more like a utopian rule, as if one were to say: “we celebrate the start of the year in month I, but it really should be month VII”. In fact, the later Jewish tradition took month VII as the month of ro’ˇs haˇssˇanâ, only maintaining the basic structure of a lunar calendar (names of the months, ﬂexibile dates). Given that the book of Leviticus (with Numbers 1:1–10:10) is “interpolated” in a previous Tetrateuch—it is possible to go without ‘stopping’ from Exodus 40:38 to Numbers 10:11—it is obvious that the above introduction corresponds to the mentality of the person who assembled the current Pentateuch, which is so clear in the writing of the ﬁrst chapters of Genesis, as we are revealing time and again. Another signiﬁcant fact is that, while in Exodus 23:14–17; 34:18–23 and Deuteronomy 16:1–17 no date from within the month is given,22 in Leviticus 23 all the festivals have a day assigned within this or that month, which necessarily directs us to the ﬁxed solar calendar. 22 Besides the general indication “in the month of Abib” (Exodus 23:15; Deuteronomy 16:1), because of the traditional correlation with the exodus from Egypt in this month, no day of the month is mentioned in these passages.

394

j. severino croatto

There is one more consideration to bear in mind: in the oﬃcial variable calendar—the calendar that applies now—the festivals can fall on a Saturday, in fact they must necessarily fall on a Saturday every few years. However, under the ﬁxed, solar calendar, no festival falls on a Saturday. This point is very important, because each festival has its own meaning and place in the calendar. Examining each of the pieces of information that Leviticus 23 oﬀers us for the regulation of some of the festivals is interesting too. As far as Easter is concerned, it begins on 15/VII (Wednesday), and lasts seven days, in other words until Tuesday 21 (a complete week). The waving of the sheaf is to be done on “the morrow after the sabbath” (v. 11b), a Sunday. In the lunar calendar this rule would cause confusion more than anything else, as the date varies each year. In the ﬁxed solar calendar, on the other hand, it would always be Sunday 19th, always the ﬁfth day of the celebration. Secondly, the festival of the weeks is determined from a ﬁxed date, the same Sunday 19th (v. 15, which refers to 11b), which takes us to 8/III, a Sunday (it never falls on a Saturday).23 In the feast of the tabernacle, there is a variation regarding Easter. The festival will start on 15/VII (a Wednesday!) and will last seven days (vs.34,36a),24 but in v. 36b the celebration of the eighth day, day of solemn rest, is added. This takes us precisely to the 22/VII, another Wednesday. In this way, the cycle of the three major festivals of pilgrimage begins and ends on a Wednesday, the fourth day of the week. The festival of the weeks takes place on a Sunday (never a Saturday!). This is all consistent, as is all mention of the day of the month throughout the Pentateuch. It is possible to draw one more conclusion from the above information. If in the weekly structure of Genesis 1 the fourth day is the centre, in the system of the festivals it is Saturday that stays in the middle. It is a secondary eﬀect, without doubt, but might have been incorporated in religious praxis. 23 This points to a total of exactly 50 days (v. 16a) because the two Sundays at either end are included. The strict thing is that “from the morrow after the Sabbath” (v. 15a), seven complete weeks, including Sunday 8/VII. 24 Like in Ugaritic, the seasonal cycle of fertility-barrenness is expressed with the heptadic system of seven years and the Israelite cycle of the agrarian festivals is dominated by this system, but days, not years. It is worth considering that these ﬁgures have nothing to do with the establishment of Saturday, but with the symbolic value of the number seven. See some of the observations by Nicola Negretti, Il settimo giorno. Indagine critico-teologica delle tradizioni presacerdotali e sacerdotali circa il sabato biblico (Roma, 1973), pp. 90–91.

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

395

4. Beyond the Pentateuch Books beyond the Pentateuch that deserve our attention, are the following. – The book of Ezra: In Ezra 7, the priest and scribe embarks on his journey from Babylonia on 1/I (=Wednesday) of the 7th year of Artaxerxes, leaving the river Ahava area on 12/I (a Sunday, that is, after the Saturday), and arrives in Jerusalem on 1/V (= Friday, before the Saturday) (v. 9). His rest (see 8:32b) becomes in fact a sabbatical rest, and as such religious. The reading of the book of the law by Ezra begins on 1/VII, which is a Wednesday or fourth day, day of novelties (Nehemiah 8:2b). – The book of Ezekiel: The ﬁrst of the three mar’ôt or visions of Ezekiel take place on 5/IV of the thirtieth year of exile (Ezekiel 1:1), which was a Sunday, and the beginning of the week. The second, 5/VI (8:1a), a Thursday, and the third, 10/I/ in the fourteenth year of the fall of Jerusalem and twenty-third of the exile [year 560] (40:1), which was a Friday.25 The text details that it happened “on this same day” (be‘e. sem hayyôm hazzeh), because this information must have been important. If there is no question regarding the calendar behind it, the interest in this chronological detail is not understood. As to Ezekiel it is noteworthy that quite a number of dates in which an indication of the day is given concern a Sunday (10 times), and this usually marks the beginning of an activity after the Saturday. This can happen by chance in the lunar calendar, but not in the ﬁxed solar calendar. 5. Evaluation of the information An initial assessment of our research shows that there is a preoccupation with the calendar—the solar calendar—principally because it is used to set the day and month both of the festivals and of the periods of time (the arc, the rain of the ﬂood, the archetypal characters), or special events such as the death of Aaron. If the indications of the years correspond to a previous source, the vision of 40–48 was previous to that of 1:1! 25

396

j. severino croatto

It is clear that the subject of the diﬀerent calendars, their origin and use in speciﬁc social contexts, is not yet completed. It has been proven that the numerical designation of the months is later information, perhaps in order to avoid the Babylonian names.26 This argument is not to be brushed aside, but it is not entirely suﬃcient. The Biblical documents that are closely related to Persia (and that reﬂect in several places the use of the Babylonian calendar)—Ezra 6:15 ("adar, with mention of the king, Darius); Nehemiah 1:1 (kislew, calendar of the Persian court); 2:1 (nîsan, with mention of Artaxerxes); 6:15 ("elûl, in an account by Nehemiah, Persian commissioner)—use Babylonian names,27 as do the Aramaic papyri of the Jewish colony of Elephantine. But the writers of those biblical books, like the writers of the Pentateuch, use numerical designators (both systems are used in the book of Esther). It is possible to say in broad terms that the Babylonian calendar—and the correspondent designators of the months—was imposed little by little, until it became “normal” in Judaism. We can see that the resistance to that imperial inﬂuence did not remain limited to Jubilees and the scrolls of Qumran, but is also reﬂected in the book of Ezra—in the story of the voyage of this priest and scribe (Ezra 7)28—and penetrated the very structure of the Pentateuch’s cosmovision, especially the cosmological myth in Genesis 1 and other accounts. Lastly, this proof raises another question: Is it certain that the Pentateuch, or Leviticus in particular, represents a vision of Jerusalem’s theocracy? Is it not the reverse? It may well be that this has been appropriated from a document that was written with another purpose, like giving hope to the Diaspora, reminding that the promises are not fulﬁlled, a text that had a vision of the future and not simply of the past. It therefore seems more appropriate to focus the study of the Pentateuch in another way, namely in the framework of emerging utopias in

26 Ezekiel 1:1, 2; 3:16; 8:1; 20:1; 24:1; 26:1; 29:1, 17; 30:20; 31:1; 32:1, 17; 33:21; 40:1. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible, 1983), p. 8. 27 Cf. R. de Vaux, Instituciones del Antiguo Testamento (Barcelona, 1964), p. 258. The twelve months were (with the Hebrew form): nisannu (nisan, march-april), ayaru ("iyyar), simanu (siwan), du"uzu (tammuz), abu ("ab), ululu ("elûl), taˇsritu (tisrî), arh. aˇsamnu (malh. eswan), kislimu (kislew), tebe.tu (tebe.t), sˇabatu (ˇsebat) and addaru ("adar). 28 See supra, in 4., point 1. The description of this journey takes elements from the tradition of Exodus, and is more independent from the Babylonian-Persian model than the Ezra -Nehemiah passages quoted before.

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

397

the Persian age. Is the Pentateuch not nearer to the utopias of Third Isaiah29 or Ezekiel 40–4830? The Pentateuch is, in reality, a great piece of resistance writing for the province of Y ehûd and for the Diaspora. We have studied this on various occasions.31 In the Pentateuch there are no Babylonian names of months;32 there are some Canaanite names,33 Canaan being closer, and far from imperial imposition or “internalisation” of imperial rules. Evidently, our interpretation triggers a series of questions: 1. Why does the use of the solar calendar only appear in priestly circles? Does this come from what has always been called P, or from the ﬁnal author of the Tetrateuch/ Pentateuch? 2. How should we view the “traditional” make up of Genesis 1? Is it a P document/tradition that inherited old ideas, or is it from the age of Y ehud, or is it a text from that time but reworked by the ﬁnal author, the person who would have included the questions about the solar calendar?

29 He who imagines “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22) is not someone who is happy with the present day situation. 30 This project of the new city is usually misunderstood, as if it was an aﬃrmation of the priesthood of Jerusalem and its institutions. However, the new city that the prophet imagines is not on the site of present Jerusalem, which will be called “The Lord is there” (48:35), it is a utopia that negates the institutional order of the time; it is an antiJerusalem vision. 31 Compare Croatto, “Exodo 1–15: Algunas claves literarias y teológicas para entender el Pentateuco,” Estudios Bíblicos 52 (1994), pp. 167–194; id., “El propósito querigmático de la redacción del Pentateuco (Reﬂexiones sobre su estructura y teología,” RIBLA 23 (1996/1), pp. 9–16; id., “El relato de la torre de Babel (Génesis 11:1–9) (Bases para una nueva interpretación),” RBíbl 58 (1996), pp. 65–80; id., Exilio y sobrevivencia. Tradiciones contraculturales en el Pentateuco (Comentario de Génesis 4:1–12:9) (Buenos Aires, 1997); id., “A Reading of the Story of the Tower of Babel from the Perspective of NonIdentity (Gen 11:1–9 in the Context of Its Production),” in: Fernando F. Segovia—Mary Ann Tolbert (eds), Teaching the Bible. The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy (New York, 1998), pp. 203–223; id., “The Function of the Non-Fulﬁlled Promises (Reading the Pentateuch from the Perspective of the Oppressed People),” in: Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (ed.), The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation (London, 1999), pp. 38–51; id., “Reading Genesis from a Utopian Perspective,” JOLAH (Journal of Latin American Hermeneutics) 1 (2004) (internet: www.isedet.edu.ar). 32 Abib, as we have seen, is really a name of Canaanite origin (compare note 20). 33 See some of the studies by G. del Olmo Lete of Ugaritic hemerology.

398

j. severino croatto

3. It is evident that the ﬁnal author of the Pentateuch respected previous traditions, like the J, E or D norms regarding the festivals, stripped of all indications of “day” and “month”. 4. It is interesting that in Exodus 35–40 there is no indication of “day/month” in relation to the construction of the sanctuary and the meeting tent. 6. The perspective of worship If all the functions of the sun and the moon indicated in the text are related with time in general, the “order” of v. 14b relates to sacred time, whether in seasonal festivals34 or in the religious calendar in general (“days and years”).35 This must be ﬁxed and immovable, as can be deduced from religious phenomenology (the gestures, the ritual events and the festivals recall paradigmatic “happenings” and work well because of the homologation and even synchronisation with them), and as we know from the “discussions” surrounding the changing of the sacred times in the religious environment of Palestine (Jubilees, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.). The calendar, in fact, marks the “location” of human beings in these religiously-charged times and determines human activity with respect to salvation. The stars, as regulators of the festivals and as demarcators of the dates, are therefore highly relevant to priestly cosmology. This is also why their creation is placed on the fourth day, although that disturbs the expected order of the divine deeds. As we have already observed, the fourth day of the week is the most signiﬁcant and “archetypal”. However, it is the stars—in their relation-

34 Mô #adîm means the “moments” of time, referred to in a particular way (compare the Greek kairós), which is why it sometimes means “seasons”, like in this passage (compare Psalm 104:19: “Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons”). In the sense of “set time”, ﬁxed, compare Exodus 13:10 (Passover), Numbers 9:2 (“Let the people of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time”). 35 “Days and years” is used as a catch-all expression because of the absence of the lamedh in the second part of the phrase (l eyamîm uˇsanîm instead of l eyamîm ul esˇanîm). In this sense, it is equivalent to “days and years”, only that in the cultural context it is more important to indicate the years, because of their greater impact on the calendar of festivals. F.S. North (“Four-Month Seasons of the Hebrew Bible,” VT 11 [1961], pp. 446–448) claims that in Genesis 1:14b yamîm means a four month long “season”, which is not necessary if the concept of “seasons” is already covered by the term mô #adîm on the same line (see the above note).

reading the pentateuch as counter-text

399

ship with time—that put in “motion” the cosmos and demarcate the life of human beings in the setting of the primordial, salvation events.36 A fourth day, then, must also be the day of the start of the year, the start of the solar cycle, because it is a day of creation.37 It is therefore the ﬁrst of month I, as well as the ﬁrst of month VII. 7. A resistance text Exactly because it is in the centre of the creational week, this divine work reveals numerous counter-cultural resonances: – Importance of the astral Gods, with their symbolic “numbers”; – The God of Israel, not Marduk for example, is the one who establishes the order of the universe, according above all to the movement of the stars; – The lunar calendar adopted due to inﬂuence from Babylon—and converted in the oﬃcial calendar in the codiﬁcation of the laws— is an expression of its domination in all areas. The stars aﬀect life in all ways. The solar calendar is a form of resistance, both in the religious and cultic and in the cultural sense; – The festivals, which are an expression of the “historic memory” of a people, must respond to culture itself. What happened in Abya Yala38 with the “evangelisation” is an example of what ought not to happen. As demonstrated by the above points, the speculations about time are inﬁnite, from mythology to philosophy (it is not necessary to remember Heidegger!), or from the astral Gods to the lights set in the sky to guide the profane and sacred activity of the human beings. Genesis, in its brief but elaborate tale of 1:14–19 has demonstrated once more the transcendence of God and His intention to put what has been created in the hands of human beings. The precise assignation of the functions of the sun and the moon reﬂects a profound “liberty” for human beings, and therefore the stars no longer have any mysterious

See M. Molé, Culte, Mythe et Cosmologie dans l’Iran ancien (Paris, 1963) for the stars and their temporal signiﬁcance in relation to sotería. 37 In bRosh Hashanah it is said that the day was created on that day (10b–11a). 38 The indigenous name for America. 36

400

j. severino croatto

or harmful power over him. The tone of the passage (see v. 14b) emphasizes on the other hand, a cultic interest in the perception of the time. But it is the entire anthropological vision of Genesis, more than anything in its current version, that rounds oﬀ this cultic focus and imagines the human being of the future in an historical, theological setting.39

39

The ethical concern/priority is raised too in the Jewish apocryphal writings, like in Enoch 65:3 (time is created for the beneﬁt of human beings); 2:1; 5:4 (the ﬁxity of the stars in their orbits opposes, as an image, the “inﬁdelity” of the impious). In Jubilees, as is explained, this “continuity” is for liturgical motives.

LIRE LA BIBLE DANS LE CONTEXTE AFRICAIN APPROCHE ET PERSPECTIVES

André Kabasele Mukenge

Introduction Lorsque je rédigeais ma thèse de doctorat à Louvain-la-Neuve sur le livre de Baruch1, un collègue originaire du Congo comme moi, achevait la sienne consacrée à la traduction en langue shi des Béatitudes matthéennes : il y étudiait le texte grec des béatitudes et en évaluait les traductions existantes en langue shi, à la lumière des enquêtes faites sur le terrain concernant notamment les équivalences lexicales, les représentations culturelles et la réception du texte. Dans le répertoire des thèses, la Revue théologique de Louvain classa mon étude sous la rubrique «exégèse » et la sienne en «missiologie ». Et pourtant, le collègue en question avait suivi une formation de bibliste, complétée du reste par des diplômes en philologie biblique et en philologie orientale. Son directeur de thèse occupait bien la chaire du Nouveau Testament. Il se considérait comme bibliste, alors que par ce classement, son université l’avait pris pour un missiologue. En fait, ce classement déclassait les questions qu’il se posait sur les choix lexicaux des traducteurs par rapport au contexte, à la culture, aux destinataires, etc. Est-ce que je ne me posais pas les mêmes questions, mutatis mutandis, en comparant la supplique collective de Ba. 1: 15–3: 8 et les textes hébreu et grecs (LXX et Théodotion) de la prière parallèle, mais plus courte, de Dn. 9: 4b–19 ? Cette anecdote illustre bien comment une certaine conception de l’exégèse disqualiﬁe certaines questions, les excluant d’oﬃce de son champ de recherche et imposant une manière jugée la seule « scientiﬁque » de faire de l’exégèse biblique. Le développement récent des méthodes d’analyse littéraire (méthodes narrative, sémiotique, structurelle) mais aussi la Wirkungsgeschichte

A. Kabasele Mukenge, La supplique collective de Ba 1,15–3,8. Traditions et réécriture. Diss. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1992). 1

402

andré kabasele mukenge

et le reader-response criticism invitent à admettre un pluralisme dans la recherche et l’étude scientiﬁque de la Bible. En 1994, la commission biblique pontiﬁcale avait publié un document fort remarqué où les diﬀérentes méthodes et approches sont présentées et évaluées. Parmi elles, on mentionne les approches contextuelles de la Bible. De quoi s’agit-il au juste ? La Bible, on le sait, est un lourd héritage façonné patiemment par ceux, nombreux, à qui il a été donné de dire la Parole, de l’écrire, de la réécrire en l’adaptant aux circonstances nouvelles, de l’éditer et de veiller, de génération en génération, à la transmettre. Parler d’une approche contextuelle de la Bible, c’est principalement inviter à entrer dans ce mouvement qui traverse les âges. Au lieu de se contenter d’une interprétation qui se concentre seulement sur ce que dit le texte situé dans son contexte d’origine, l’approche contextuelle prône une lecture engagée, qui naît de la situation vécue. Pour autant, il ne s’agit pas de verser dans l’arbitraire des interprétations individuelles, mais d’assumer, en communauté de foi, l’héritage canonique pour l’appliquer aux nécessités présentes et répondre aux appels qu’il nous lance. Le concept est nouveau, mais la réalité qu’il exprime est aussi ancienne que la Bible elle-même. En eﬀet, les auteurs bibliques—nous le savons bien—ont sans cesse actualisé le message dont ils étaient porteurs pour mettre leurs contemporains devant les exigences de la foi. Chaque génération est porteuse des questions de son temps. Sa lecture de la Bible ne peut être étrangère à l’univers culturel qui est le sien. La lecture contextuelle de la Bible est une proposition de rencontre entre les situations humaines concrètes et le témoignage biblique. Car le but du texte biblique n’est pas seulement d’être compris, mais d’être vécu, ou mieux de permettre de vivre. Lorsqu’on a compris le sens des mots, des phrases, le contexte historique, et qu’on a décelé les circonstances de rédaction du texte, sa structure, ses thèmes principaux, on n’a pas encore «accueilli» le texte. La question «que veut dire le texte » n’est pas la dernière. Dans l’horizon propre de la lecture croyante, les questions ultimes sont : que me donne le texte de vivre ? Que me révèlet-il de Dieu et de la part de Dieu ? C’est dans cet espace que le texte biblique acquiert pour la vie du lecteur sa vérité, voire sa normativité. C’est dans cet espace seulement que le lecteur perpétue la mémoire du texte : en le vivant. Il faut dire que c’est cet espace de vérité qui fait advenir le texte lu comme Parole de Dieu. Ceci dit, il n’est pas question de prétendre que les approches contextuelles soient les seules utiles et pertinentes pour la recherche biblique.

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

403

Loin s’en faut. Comme nous le verrons, elles sont limitées par le contexte, et sont sélectives tant dans leurs thématiques que dans leur méthodologie. Il s’agit seulement de montrer leur pertinence et de se demander ce qu’elles peuvent apporter aussi dans le progrès général de la recherche biblique. 1. La lecture contextuelle de la Bible et l’émergence de nouveaux paradigmes Dans son dernier ouvrage, Jean-Marc Ela, un des théologiens africains les plus actifs, en appelle avec insistance à une lecture africaine de la Bible2. Il s’agit pour lui essentiellement de renouveler le regard que l’on pose sur la Bible, aﬁn de redonner à la Parole de Dieu son actualité. En d’autres termes, il faut créer un espace d’interrogations qui permettrait de ré-entendre la Parole de Dieu comme une réponse ouvrant à de nouvelles possibilités d’existence. Dans cette perspective, il appelle à admettre le principe d’une pluralité de lectures de la Révélation. Pour ouvrir celle-ci à la diversité des horizons de sens, on doit reconnaître en eﬀet la relativité et les limites des grilles de lecture qui ont longtemps dominé l’intelligence du christianisme en Occident, sans prendre en compte d’autres cadres de référence (p. 43). Et pour la théologie africaine, il est question concrètement de relire la Bible du point de vue de notre histoire qui est celle des hommes et des femmes opprimés, en lutte pour leur libération (p. 37). Ela en est convaincu: la prise en compte du contexte d’oppression et d’injustice dans lequel on vit, permet d’inventer une manière de lire la Bible en tant que message de libération pour les opprimés (p. 47). Dans cet ordre d’idées, la première nouvelle qu’attendent les peuples asservis, c’est d’abord l’annonce de leur libération. Ainsi, la Bible peut aider les chrétiens africains à s’aﬃrmer contre l’oppression, à se réapproprier la pointe du message en la transformant en un véritable instrument de combat pour la libération. En outre, Jean-Marc Ela invite à une vigilance critique dans le recours à l’Ecriture sainte. Sans cette vigilance critique, on tomberait sûrement dans une lecture fondamentaliste ou «instrumentaliste ». S’il

2 J.-M. Ela, Repenser la théologie africaine. Le Dieu qui libère (Paris : Karthala, 2003). L’ouvrage a paru en même temps en traduction allemande : Gott befreit. Neue Wege afrikanischer Theologie, (Freiburg im B.- Basel—Wien : Herder, 2003).

404

andré kabasele mukenge

admet qu’il faut mettre en valeur le caractère subversif de ces textes, il appelle autant à exercer une culture du soupçon même à l’égard des textes bibliques, car une réappropriation critique et responsable du sens des Ecritures exige la rupture radicale avec l’ordre du discours théologique qui s’est avéré incapable de mettre en évidence la force libératrice du message biblique. Ce faisant, on pourrait redonner toute leur place aux aspects de la Révélation occultés par la théologie coloniale, notamment : le Dieu qui libère (p. 46), la valeur du monde d’ici-bas (p. 79s), la capacité de protestation évangélique (p. 81) qui donne lieu à une «théologie de l’insoumission » (p. 87), ou encore une « théologie prophétique » (p. 112). La culture du soupçon doit permettre également de voir que les témoignages bibliques, eux-mêmes prisonniers de l’esprit de leur temps, n’ont pas toujours tiré les conséquences pratiques et institutionnelles du message central de la révélation de Dieu en Jésus-Christ. D’ailleurs, cela participe de la logique de l’Incarnation et de la révélation progressive : c’est pourquoi il appartient à chaque génération, éclairée par l’Esprit Saint et à la faveur des progrès de sa conscience morale, d’actualiser toujours mieux ce message. A ce stade, quelques aspects méritent d’être relevés : 1° Quand on parle d’une lecture africaine de la Bible, il s’agit avant tout d’une perspective de lecture : voir le texte selon un point de vue déterminé. Pour Ela et bien d’autres théologiens et biblistes africains, ce point de vue est celui d’un opprimé, et le texte biblique est considéré comme un texte de libération ; l’histoire biblique comme une histoire de libération. 2° Un tel point de vue inﬂuence nécessairement le choix des textes à lire et des thèmes à étudier. C’est désormais le contexte et les questions des communautés qui déterminent le choix des thèmes, et non pas seulement l’intérêt académique ou scolaire. Sans jeter aucun discrédit sur des recherches d’intérêt académique dont les retombées sur la compréhension des textes se voient à long terme, il s’agit d’observer seulement qu’elles ne sont pas la seule voie pour la recherche biblique. 3° Il est enﬁn question d’une distance critique par rapport à certains textes jugés ethnocentriques, et dont il faut déceler le revêtement culturel ou dénoncer le caractère partial et idéologique. Ce point est radicalisé chez des auteurs comme Itumeleng J. Mosala, pour qui la Bible est aussi un lieu où s’expriment des luttes idéo-

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

405

logiques et où s’exercent des conﬂits de classe historico-culturels spéciﬁques3. Sans nécessairement recourir pour cela à la théorie de la lutte des classes, nous savons tous que des points de vue diﬀérents s’aﬀrontent parfois dans le Canon—ce que nous appelons des traditions—et que la ﬁxation du Canon et l’exclusion de certains livres a sans doute partie liée avec des options théologiques, voire idéologiques. Nous en verrons un exemple à propos des livres d’Esdras/Néhémie. Toujours est-il que cette distance critique vaut également par rapport à l’histoire de l’interprétation de certains textes. Fort de l’expérience vécue en Afrique du Sud, Gérald West, à la suite de Mosala, a fourni, de son côté, une réﬂexion méthodologique intéressante sur l’interprétation de la Bible dans le contexte africain4. À la question de savoir quelle approche herméneutique est la plus appropriée pour que la relecture de la Bible devienne une véritable force de libération, West énonce deux principes. Premièrement, la lecture africaine de la Bible doit se situer ellemême au sein des combats historiques et culturels des peuples africains. Puisque le Dieu de la Bible est un Dieu en continuelle lutte contre les forces du mal et de la mort, il faut se demander si la lecture des textes bibliques se situe bien dans la même perspective, et dénoncer toute lecture qui viserait à faire des textes un instrument de contrôle social ou de légitimation d’un statu quo injuste. Deuxièmement, la lecture africaine de la Bible doit dire ouvertement ses présupposés idéologiques et théoriques, car la puissance libératrice du discours théologique diminue si celui-ci est asservi idéologiquement et théoriquement. Autrement dit, l’émergence d’une herméneutique biblique de libération pour les peuples africains suppose une rupture épistémologique claire avec les pratiques et les discours dominants. En quoi consiste cette rupture ? Dans le choix des interlocuteurs principalement. Puisque le contexte africain peut être déﬁni comme un contexte de crise, où la majorité numérique est exploitée, sinon opprimée, il faut poser au texte biblique les questions que se pose cette majorité souvent silencieuse et non seulement les questions d’intérêt académique.

3

I.J. Mosala, Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa, (Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1989). 4 Voir G. West, Biblical Hermeneutics of Liberation. Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context, (New York : Orbis Book, 1995).

406

andré kabasele mukenge

Ce sont eux—les habitants de la périphérie du pouvoir, de l’avoir et du savoir—qui deviennent ainsi les interlocuteurs privilégiés de la lecture africaine de la Bible. Ce faisant, on quitte le paradigme d’une science se déployant exclusivement en milieu cultivé, au sein du monde savant, et on instaure un nouveau paradigme, celui qui prend en compte inclusivement aussi bien les lecteurs populaires ou ordinaires que les lecteurs cultivés5. Il faut préciser ce qu’on entend ici par lecteur ordinaire ou populaire. Dans un sens large, il s’agit de tous ceux qui lisent la Bible sans les méthodes critiques d’analyse, et même ceux qui, sans savoir lire, écoutent et méditent la Parole de Dieu. Dans un sens plus spéciﬁque, ce sont les gens de la marge, exclus des lieux de pouvoir et de parole, des pauvres, des opprimés, parmi lesquels aussi les femmes et les Eglises africaines indépendantes. Ils sont les interlocuteurs privilégiés dans une herméneutique biblique de libération. Comment pourrait-il en être autrement ? Du moment qu’on introduit un contexte spéciﬁque dans sa lecture de la Bible, ce contexte devient comme la toile de fond, il fournit une ressource vitale qui renouvelle la lecture elle-même tout en se laissant nourrir et éclairer par elle. 2. La culture africaine, une ressource dans l’interprétation de la Bible La recherche biblique africaine est dominée par une conscience vive d’une convergence notable entre le monde biblique et le monde africain. Deux citations, tirées des interventions au cours du Synode romain des évêques africains, en 1994, brossent des points de convergence : – « Le langage biblique, imaginatif, narratif, proche de la nature, simple et en même temps profond dans sa présentation des mystères de Dieu et de la nouveauté du Christ, est très proche de l’âme africaine» (Card. J. Tomko, préfet de la congrégation pour l’évangélisation des peuples). – «Plus que beaucoup d’autres peuples, les peuples d’Afrique disposent des atouts pour pouvoir comprendre et accepter le message biblique. Ces atouts sont: les aﬃnités intrinsèques de la culture et de la religion traditionnelle africaine avec le monde de la Bible; l’eﬃcacité de la parole: nous savons, de par notre culture africaine, que la parole est une force, 5

Se reporter à G.O. West, The Academy of the Poor: Towards a Dialogical Reading of the Bible (Sheﬃeld : Sheﬃeld Academic Press, 1999).

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

407

et sa puissance est proportionnelle à l’autorité du locuteur et à la place que celui-ci occupe dans la hiérarchie ontologique des hommes. Ainsi donc, la Bible, Parole de Dieu, revêt pour l’Africain un caractère particulier, qui la place au-dessus de tous les autres discours, de quelque nature qu’ils soient. Les Africains se sentent également plus proches du monde de la Bible par l’utilisation qu’elle fait de l’argument de la tradition ancestrale, par le sens de la parenté, la vision du monde imprégnée du providentialisme, le monothéisme, l’unité du sacré et du profane, le symbolisme etc.» (Mgr Joseph Kumuondala, archevêque de Mbandaka, République Démocratique du Congo).

Nous savons tous que l’étude du Proche-orient antique a permis de reconnaître les aﬃnités entre la culture biblique et les cultures ambiantes. Conséquence : on peut situer les données bibliques dans le contexte de l’époque, ce qui permet de discerner ce qu’Israël a emprunté aux cultures avoisinantes et ce qui constitue la spéciﬁcité de sa foi et de ses traditions. La même recherche peut se poursuivre par rapport aux aﬃnités et aux parallèles avec le contexte africain. Lorsque j’ai étudié le récit du fratricide en Gn. 4: 1–16, il m’a paru instructif de le rapprocher avec un parallèle africain, et de repérer les continuités et les discontinuités6. Voici le texte de ce parallèle7 : Machilo est le frère aîné de Machilouanè. Tous les deux partent à la chasse avec leur chien. Ils arrivent à un arbre où le chien de Machilouanè trouve une ouverture d’où sortent des vaches grasses, tandis que le chien de Machilo en trouve une d’où sortent des vaches maigres. Machilo, envieux, tue son frère et ramène à lui seul tout le troupeau au village. Mais il rencontre quelqu’un qui lui demande: « Où as-tu trouvé toutes ces vaches ? »—«Je les ai trouvées dans l’arbre creux!» répondit Machilo. «Où est ton frère Machilouanè? » demanda encore l’homme. «Je ne sais pas, répondit Machilo, il m’a dit: Va devant avec les vaches, je viens plus tard.» Mais le chien du frère tué commença à hurler en aboyant: « Wah wah! Machilo a tué Machilouanè, parce qu’il a vu que ses vaches à lui étaient maigres !» Là-dessus, l’homme prit peur, évita Machilo et suivit son chemin. Devant l’entrée du village, des hommes vinrent à la rencontre de Machilo et le questionnèrent eux aussi à propos des vaches. Machilo essaya de nouveau de s’en tirer par le même mensonge, mais le chien aboya de nouveau la vérité. À l’entrée du village, la même scène se répéta pour la troisième fois. Une clameur s’éleva

6 A. Kabasele Mukenge, « Relecture de Gn 4, 1–16 dans le contexte africain », in : J.-M. Auwers—A. Wénin (éds), Lectures et relectures de la Bible. Festschrift P.-M. Bogaert (Leuven : University Press, 1999), pp. 421–441. 7 Cf. E. Drewermann, Le mal. Structures et permanence, vol. 1, (Paris : Desclée de Brouwer, 1995), pp. 187–188.

408

andré kabasele mukenge alors : « Hé, Machilo, qu’est-ce que cela signiﬁe? Où est ton frère Machilouanè? » Mais le fratricide répondit comme auparavant. Les gens donnèrent à Machilo l’ordre de les accompagner à la recherche de son frère. Arrivés à l’arbre, Machilo essaya de les mener dans une fausse direction. Mais le chien ﬁdèle leur montra l’endroit où le crime avait eu lieu. Alors, une terrible clameur de deuil s’éleva dans tout le village. «Tuons Machilo!», criait-on. Mais quelques hommes s’y opposèrent en disant: « Ne tuons pas le fratricide, mais chassons-le de notre village. Qu’il soit banni à jamais.» Et ainsi le chassa-t-on du village pour toujours.

Le parallélisme est facile à établir entre ce conte africain et le récit biblique de Gn. 4: 1–16 : (1) le frère aîné tue son cadet par jalousie ; (2) le succès du cadet n’est pas dû à quelques performances personnelles, mais à sa chance ; (3) le meurtre est couvert par un mensonge, mais révélé par un Tiers, non-humain, mais allié objectif—Dieu d’un côté, le chien de l’autre—qui le dénonce et en témoigne ; (4) le crime mérite la peine de mort, qui est commuée en bannissement. La grande diﬀérence consiste dans le fait que le récit biblique concerne essentiellement le rapport de Dieu et de l’homme. Le fratricide se situe dans le contexte de ce rapport, et il a même lieu à cause de lui: c’est le don de la bénédiction divine au seul Abel qui provoque la jalousie de Caïn. Du point de vue formel, le récit biblique se présente sous forme de mythe ou de récit de commencement, ce qui ne ressort pas du conte africain. Mais, on peut tenir que le récit biblique n’appartenait pas originellement à l’histoire primitive. La crainte de Caïn d’être tué par un quidam (Gn. 4: 14) suppose un monde bien habité. Sur ce point, le conte africain est mieux en place. Or, l’histoire de l’interprétation de Gn. 4 s’est beaucoup préoccupée des deux questions suivantes : 1) pourquoi seule l’oﬀrande d’Abel a été agréée tandis que Dieu n’a pas regardé l’oﬀrande de Caïn ? 2) Comment les deux frères s’en sont-ils rendus compte ? Le texte, on peut le vériﬁer, ne donne ni la raison pour laquelle Dieu n’a pas agréé l’oﬀrande de Caïn ni le signe qu’il a utilisé pour faire connaître son agrément pour l’un et son refus pour l’autre. Ce silence narratif donnera lieu à une pluralité d’interprétations. Par exemple : le targum Neoﬁti introduit au v. 8 une dispute entre les deux frères qui conduit au meurtre, et au cours de laquelle Abel

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

409

donne la raison de l’agrément de son oﬀrande : « Parce que mes œuvres étaient meilleures que les tiennes, mon oﬀrande à moi a été accueillie avec faveur tandis que ta propre oﬀrande n’a pas été accueillie avec faveur »8. Le N.T. relaye l’interprétation qui voit dans Caïn et Abel le contraste entre le méchant et le juste (1 Jn. 3:12 ; He. 11:4). Or, dans le récit, Caïn n’est pas a priori mauvais. L’épithète d’Abel « le juste », le thème du sang des justes, d’Abel à Zacharie (Mt. 23:35 ; Lc 11:51), puis au Christ, celui du sang puriﬁcateur du Christ, plus éloquent que le sang d’Abel, le lien entre l’oﬀrande d’Abel et sa mort, tout ceci fonde l’exégèse typologique qui voit dans Abel la préﬁguration du Christ (He. 12:24). Pour Philon, Caïn est l’homme du mauvais partage, l’ami de soi, tandis qu’Abel est l’ami de Dieu. Dans la même ligne, Philon reproche à Caïn l’oﬀrande d’objets inanimés et non d’êtres animés. Jean Chrysostome dira même que la faute de Caïn consiste dans le fait d’avoir gardé pour lui les prémices et de n’oﬀrir que la seconde récolte, alors qu’Abel oﬀre les premiers-nés, anciens en âge et en valeur. Et certains soulignent dès lors le caractère choisi du don d’Abel opposé à la négligence de Caïn. Il faut mentionner également la légende, tardive, de la fumée ascendante du sacriﬁce d’Abel, descendante, pour celui de Caïn9. Toutes ces interprétations, on le voit, essaient de combler une lacune dans le récit biblique : pourquoi l’oﬀrande d’Abel a été agréée, celle de Caïn, non ? Pourtant, cette ellipse est narrativement pertinente. La source fondamentale du conﬂit interhumain est l’impression d’injustice foncière issue des diﬀérences. Walter Vogels l’exprime bien lorsqu’il écrit : «Le texte parle tout simplement de l’expérience humaine quotidienne : la vie n’est pas ‹ juste › ; elle est toujours imprévisible ; ce qu’on attend, n’arrive pas, et ce qu’on n’attend pas, nous arrive. Puisque Dieu, dans la pensée biblique, dirige la vie, c’est bien lui le responsable de ces inégalités. La Bible est remplie d’exemples semblables. Il s’agit d’un mystère pour lequel n’existe aucune explication adéquate ; on peut se révolter ou s’en accommoder10 ».

R. Le Déaut, Targum du Pentateuque, t. 1 Genèse, (Paris : Cerf, 1978), p. 102. Voir A. Scheiber, “La fumée des oﬀrandes de Caïn et d’Abel. Histoire d’une légende,” Revue des Etudes Juives 115 (1956), pp. 9–24. 10 W. Vogels, “Caïn, l’être humain qui devient une non-personne,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 114 (1992), pp. 321–340. 8 9

410

andré kabasele mukenge

C’est ici que la légende de Machilo et Machilouanè devient intéressante ; elle conforte ce point de vue : la gratiﬁcation d’un des frères n’est pas due à quelque mérite ou quelque performance. Le rapprochement entre les deux récits permet ainsi d’écarter certaines interprétations attestées dans l’histoire de l’exégèse, et qui ne semblent pas tenir compte des silences du texte. Bien plus, l’expérience des faveurs divines inégalement distribuées est connue dans la conception africaine traditionnelle. Certains proverbes reprennent, en eﬀet, le thème d’un Dieu déconcertant qui ne répartit pas équitablement ses biens aux mortels. Citons, pour l’aire luba, quelques-uns de ces dictons qui semblent dénoncer une certaine partialité de Dieu : – « Dieu, il aime les uns et rejette les autres » (Mvidi Mukulu wa cyabu, utu waswa bantu wabenga banga) ; – « Dieu donne à certains : aux uns, il donne des biens, aux autres des bambous » (Mvidie upapa bamwe, upapa banga bintu, banga wabapa mitete) ; – «Je m’en allai saluer Dieu en disant: mon Dieu, daigne bien me répondre. Comment tu crées ainsi les hommes, certains féconds, d’autres stériles » (Nyile kwela Mvidi Mukulu moyo ne: Maweja wetu ngandamunaku. Muudi mufuke bebe bantu, banga balela bakwabo nkumba)11.

Sur cet arrière-fond, on peut mieux comprendre, me semble-t-il, le récit biblique : comment Caïn a-t-il vu que Dieu ne l’agréait pas, lui et son oﬀrande, et qu’il agréait Abel et son oﬀrande ? Puisque le sacriﬁce a pour fonction de s’attirer les faveurs divines, Caïn n’a pu le constater qu’au quotidien, en voyant que la vie de son frère était plus favorable que la sienne. L’interpellation fondamentale de Gn. 4:1–16, comme de la légende citée ci-dessus, concerne l’acceptation de la diﬀérence. On le sait : la diﬀérence interhumaine est originaire. Aussi la fait-on remonter, dans le récit biblique, à Dieu lui-même, qui regarderait diﬀéremment les hommes. Un proverbe Bété (Côte d’Ivoire) le traduit bien : «Les doigts d’une main n’ont pas la même longueur ». La diﬀérence (de rôle, de profession, de fortune, de race, de sexe, de tribu, etc) estelle nécessairement source de conﬂit ? Gn. 4:7 tendrait à répondre par la négative, mais à une condition : « agir bien », « dominer le péché tapi devant sa porte ». C’est que la diﬀérence pose problème, dérange,

11

Se référer à O. Bimwenyi-Kweshi, Discours théologique négro-africain. Problèmes des fondements, (Paris : Présence Africaine, 1981), pp. 571–585.

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

411

inquiète, mais l’aﬀrontement mortel n’est pas une fatalité : le choix reste possible chez l’être humain. Voilà ce que peut apporter la mise en évidence des parallèles et des similitudes entre le monde africain et le monde biblique : l’actualisation du texte s’en trouve dès lors facilitée. En plus de ces convergences culturelles, on peut également constater des similitudes linguistiques. En eﬀet, certaines équivalences lexicales peuvent être mieux saisies si l’on passe directement des langues bibliques aux langues africaines. Malheureusement, les traductions en langues vernaculaires en Afrique se font jusqu’ici à partir des traductions européennes (français, anglais, portugais). Cette tâche incombe également à l’exégète, en collaboration avec les spécialistes d’autres disciplines (linguistique, sociologie, anthropologie, etc.). Limitons-nous à quelques exemples12. – La syntaxe hébraïque connaît une tournure particulière qui a son correspondant dans certaines langues africaines. Il s’agit de l’emploi nominal usuel de l’inﬁnitif absolu en tant qu’accusatif d’objet interne13. Ce procédé linguistique permet à l’hébreu d’exprimer certaines nuances emphatiques. Le plus souvent, l’emphase ne porte pas sur l’action verbale elle-même, mais sur une modalité, laquelle est ainsi renforcée. Lorsqu’en Gn. 2:17, il est dit littéralement « mourir tu mourras » (môt tamût), l’aﬃrmation devient plus forte : « tu mourras certainement ». En Ciluba par exemple, la même tournure syntaxique est attestée : Bua kufua neufue («pour mourir, tu mourras »), dans le sens qu’il n’y aura aucune excuse, aucun échappatoire. En partant des versions françaises, les traducteurs de la Bible en ciluba n’ont pas pu rendre une telle nuance, pourtant disponible dans la syntaxe luba14. 12 Plusieurs Africains qui connaissent les langues sémitiques ne peuvent qu’être frappés par des similitudes syntaxiques avec des langues africaines. Sans en tirer nécessairement des conclusions hâtives sur une inﬂuence directe, il convient de mesurer le bénéﬁce de telles aﬃnités pour la traduction et la compréhension du message. Voir d’autres exemples à partir d’une autre langue africaine : I. Himbanza, Transmettre la Bible. Une critique exégétique de la traduction de l’A.T. : le cas du Rwanda, (Rome, Urbaniana University Press, 2001). 13 Voir P. Joüon, Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique (Rome, 1923), §123, d. 14 Dans la traduction de la Bible en Ciluba (Kinshasa: Verbum Bible, 1994), la tournure de Gn. 2:17 est rendue simplement par la locution neufue (« tu mourras »), sans donc aucune emphase. En respectant la grammaire hébraïque et en puisant dans les ressources de la grammaire luba, il serait plus commode d’utiliser la construction par l’inﬁnitif accusatif d’objet interne : bua kufua neufue.

412

andré kabasele mukenge

– Lorsqu’en Gn. 12:1, le Seigneur dit à Abram : lek-leka, le lamed du dativus commodi est employé d’une façon très particulière avec le pronom de la même personne que celle du verbe (ici la deuxième personne du singulier masculin). Comme le note Joüon dans sa grammaire (§ 133, d), on obtient, surtout avec les verbes intransitifs, particulièrement avec les verbes de mouvement et leurs contraires, une nuance réﬂéchie indirecte. L’addition du pronom souligne la part que le sujet prend à l’action. Une telle tournure se rencontre par exemple en lingala: kende nayo (littéralement « va avec toi »). Tant que le traducteur de la Bible en lingala part du texte français, il ne rendra jamais la tournure hébraïque pourtant disponible dans la syntaxe lingala15. – Le système verbal hébreu lui-même a quelques correspondances avec certaines langues africaines, notamment dans le fait qu’il existe une conjugaison simple (qal) et des conjugaisons augmentées ou dérivées qui se forment par le redoublement d’un élément de la racine ou par l’addition de préﬁxes, de suﬃxes. Comme en hébreu, ces conjugaisons augmentées indiquent soit le causatif, soit le réﬂéchi, soit le passif, soit encore l’intensif. En ciluba par exemple, le verbe kuenza (« faire ») peut avoir plusieurs formes augmentées par addition de suﬃxes et d’inﬁxes : kuenzeja (« faire faire »), kuenzela («faire pour»), kudienzela (« faire pour soi »), kuenjibua («être fait »), kuenzulula (« faire à nouveau »), kuenzenza (« faire fréquemment »). Fort de telles correspondances, je me permets de minimiser une difﬁculté soulevée par certains exégètes dans le récit du meurtre d’Abel dont il était question plus haut. En Gn. 4:1, Ève engendre son premierné et dit : «qanîtî "îsh "et yhwh ». Un bon nombre d’exégètes notent que la phrase comporte plusieurs diﬃcultés. D’abord, le sens précis du verbe qanah : en hébreu, on distingue deux racines, l’une d’origine ougaritique signiﬁant « créer », « produire » ; et l’autre, d’origine phénicienne, « acquérir », « acheter ». Une autre diﬃculté vient du fait qu’il est question d’un homme ("îsh), ce qui ne peut s’appliquer à un nouveau-né, prétend-on. On évoque pour cela l’argument selon lequel cette utilisation concernant un enfant n’est pas attestée ailleurs. Nous connaissons tous la faiblesse de l’argument du silence, car la Bible n’est pas 15

Eﬀectivement, le traducteur part de la Bible de Jérusalem «quitte ton pays… », ce qui est rendu en lingala par tika ekolo ya yo.

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

413

une encyclopédie contenant toutes les situations possibles de la vie. Par ailleurs, combien de cas bibliques parallèles à cette situation peut-on invoquer pour soutenir l’argument du silence ? Dans ma langue, on peut bien désigner un nouveau-né par le même terme que « homme adulte » ou «femme adulte », voyant déjà en lui le père ou la mère qu’il va devenir. Dans une culture où la personne est vue d’abord dans son rôle de père/mère, cela ne fait pas de problème, même si ce n’est pas la seule manière de parler. En ciluba, les parents diraient indiﬀéremment : « tuakupeta muana » (nous avons eu un enfant) ou bien «tuakupeta muntu mulume » (nous avons eu un homme). C. Westermann, dans son commentaire, envisage cet usage que ma langue conﬁrme : «sie sieht vielmehr in dem Kind, das sie geboren hat, den (zukünftigen) Mann ; sie rühmt sich also tatsächlich, dass sie einen Mann hervorgebracht hat »16. Et pourtant, un collègue européen voyait derrière ces paroles d’Ève des traces d’inceste et projetait ainsi sur ce texte des théories modernes de psychanalyse—le complexe d’Œdipe—expliquant que le conﬂit entre Caïn et Abel proviendrait de l’amour possessif, voire incestueux d’Ève pour son premier-né. 3. Transactions entre le texte biblique et le contexte africain J’aime bien le terme #transaction" utilisé par Gerald O. West17, pour caractériser la rencontre de l’Afrique avec la Bible, notamment dans l’acte de traduire. Sans limiter ce rapport à la traduction, je considère ici tout eﬀort d’actualisation des Ecritures, de contextualisation, de relecture comme une transaction, c’est-à-dire une action qui agit sur les deux partenaires (le texte et le contexte du lecteur), une négociation qui vise un point de rencontre, un point d’intersection. Ces interactions peuvent prendre plusieurs formes, mais toujours avec le souci de rendre la Parole vivante, compréhensible et pertinente pour l’Africain. Cet eﬀort d’intelligibilité peut se faire par analogie d’éléments culturels ou analogie de situations. Il s’agit d’une part de repérer des éléments culturels africains qui permettent de comprendre plus facilement les textes bibliques—langage symbolique, expression C. Westermann, Genesis, (Neukirchen-Vluyn : Neukirchener Verlag, 1974), p. 395. G.O. West, « Mapping African Biblical Interpretation : a Tentative Sketch », in : G.O. West—M.W. Dube (éds), The Bible in Africa : Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends, (Leiden-Boston-Köln : Brill, 2000), pp. 29–53. 16 17

414

andré kabasele mukenge

sapientielle, vision du monde, rites et institutions -; et d’autre part, d’exprimer la vérité révélée au moyen de nouveaux véhicules culturels propres à l’Afrique, sans oublier l’utilisation des formes traditionnelles de communication, comme les proverbes18. Forcément, une telle perspective est sélective, car on choisit les textes et les thèmes à soumettre à l’étude à partir des interrogations africaines. On aboutit à la mise en rapport surtout avec le contexte socio-culturel, socio-économique et socio-politique. Signalons la prédilection pour certains livres comme Exode19, Amos20, Apocalypse21, et pour des thèmes comme la libération de la servitude, la justice sociale, la reconstruction nationale, la prédication prophétique dans son aspect politique22. On constate également une prise en compte de la place de la femme et de son aspiration à la libération intégrale, et une proposition d’une lecture féministe de la Bible dans le contexte africain23. Deux exemples—concernant évidemment l’Ancien Testament—sufﬁront à montrer la fécondité de ces approches. Le premier est tiré d’une étude de Gunther Wittenberg sur l’interprétation de la formule jérémienne « pour bâtir (banah) et pour planter (na.ta #)24 ». Nous le savons, ce binôme apparaît dans une série constituée de 4 ou 6 verbes. Les 18 Des études spéciﬁques ont tenté un rapprochement entre les proverbes bibliques et les proverbes africains : L. Naré, Proverbes salomoniens et proverbes mossi. Étude comparative à partir d’une nouvelle analyse de Pr 25–29, (Frankfurt-Bern-New York : Peter Lang, 1986) ; M.J. Masenya, “In the School of Wisdom : an Interpretation of Some Old Testament Proverbs in a Nothern Sotho Context,” Old Testament Essays 4 (1991), pp. 342–361 ; K.J.N. Owan, “African Proverbial Wisdom and Biblical Proverbial Wisdom,” The Nigerian Journal of Theology 11 (1997), pp. 25–48. 19 Cf. J.-M. Ela, Le cri de l’homme africain, (Paris : l’Harmattan, 1980) ; E. Mveng, L’Afrique dans l’Eglise. Paroles de croyant, (Paris : l’Harmattan, 1985), p. 199. Ces auteurs pratiquent ce qu’ils appellent «une lecture africaine de l’exode ». 20 Voir J.A. Schutte, “Amos, Israel and South Africa,” Missionalia, 5 (1977), n. 2, pp. 5–7 ; K. Owan, “Championing the Cause of the Less Privileged : Human Promotion in Nigeria in the Light of Prophet Amos,” Revue Africaine de Théologie 33 (1993), pp. 37–57. 21 G. Gerachty, “The Book of Revelation : an Aid to Primary Evangelization as we await the Third Millennium,” African Christian Studies 13 (1997), n. 2, pp. 53–62 ; P. Poucouta, Lettres aux Églises d’Afrique. Apocalypse 1–3, (Paris : Karthala, 1997). 22 Dans cette ligne, on peut mentionner : L. Magesa, “The Bible and a Liberation Theology for Africa,” African Ecclesiastical Review 19 (1977), pp. 217–222, N.I. Ndiokwere, Prophecy and Revolution. The Role of Prophets in the Independent African Churches and in Biblical Tradition, (London, 1981) ; J.G. Strydom, “Being a Prophet in the New South Africa : Can We Learn From the Old Testament Prophets ?,” Old Testament Essays 13 (2000), pp. 103–118. 23 Voir surtout M.W. Dube, Other Ways of Reading. African Women and the Bible, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001). 24 G. Wittenberg, “… To Build and to Plant (Jer. 1:10). The Message of Jeremiah as a

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

415

auteurs discutent sur la formule originelle, et la plupart d’entre eux penchent pour une formulation à 4 verbes antithétiques. Mais la question qui préoccupe Wittenberg, à partir du contexte africain, est celle de savoir si les textes jérémiens visent le salut opposé au châtiment, et utilisent ainsi les actions de bâtir et planter dans un sens métaphorique comme certains auteurs le pensent, ou si plutôt, compte tenu du contexte postexilique de restauration, il est question de rebâtir réellement les maisons et les villes détruites et de replanter les vignes et les champs dévastés par les envahisseurs babyloniens. Après une analyse des occurrences de ces expressions, l’auteur opte pour la deuxième alternative. Dès lors, il trouve intéressant l’association des deux termes : « bâtir » ne va pas sans « planter ». Dans le contexte de la reconstruction de la nouvelle Afrique du Sud post-apartheid, des projets de constructions de cités ont parfois dissocié bâtir et planter; ce qui a donné lieu à des cités déprimantes, sans espace vert. Wittenberg tire de la formule jérémienne une interpellation pour réajuster le tir. Mais au-delà de cet aspect exhortatif, il convient de remarquer la reconnaissance du caractère concret des images utilisées par le livre de Jérémie. Peut-on s’imaginer que ces images sonnaient autrement dans les oreilles de ceux qui, au lendemain de l’exil babylonien, retrouvaient un pays dévasté ? Le rejet de l’interprétation métaphorique de ces expressions rejoint la requête de J.-M. Ela citée précédemment pour qui il faut, dans une lecture africaine de la Bible, redonner leur place aux aspects occultés par la théologie coloniale, notamment la valeur du monde d’ici bas. Le deuxième exemple concerne l’intérêt manifesté pour les livres de Néhémie et Esdras, dans le cadre de la «théologie de la reconstruction »25. Nous savons que ces livres ne comptent pas parmi ceux qui sont les plus étudiés. Et pourtant, le mouvement africain de la théologie de la reconstruction les a pris comme modèles. Lancé au début des années 90, dans les milieux protestants, ce mouvement vise à mobi-

Source of Hope for the Exilic Community and its Relevance for Community Building in South Africa,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 112 (2002), pp. 57–67. 25 I. G. P. Gous, “Old Testament Theology of Reconstruction : Socio-cultural Anthropology, Old Testament Theology and a Changing South Africa,” Old Testament Essays 6 (1993), pp. 175–189; R.R. Richards, “National Reconstruction and Literary Creativity in Ezra-Nehemiah : a Black South African Perspective,” Old Testament Essays 7 (1994), pp. 277–301 ; J.N.K. Mugambi, From Liberation to Reconstruction, (Nairobi : East Africa Educational Publishers, 1995) ; E. Farisani, “The Use of Ezra-Nehemiah in a Quest for an African Theology of Reconstruction,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 116 (2003), pp. 27–50.

416

andré kabasele mukenge

liser les Eglises contre la crise globale qui frappe la société africaine postcoloniale. Il veut, en outre, montrer que le déﬁ de l’évangélisation en Afrique ne peut pas se réduire à la quête de l’identité culturelle et au combat pour la libération, mais qu’il invite à opérer de nouveaux choix économiques, politiques, sociaux et culturels en vue de nouvelles fondations morales et spirituelles et de nouvelles stratégies pour bâtir l’avenir. Les préoccupations d’inculturation et de libération doivent être désormais intégrées dans cette perspective de l’invention du futur, perspective qui requiert la restructuration des mentalités et des attitudes. Ce mouvement prend en compte deux événements majeurs : la ﬁn de la guerre froide et celle de l’apartheid en Afrique du sud. La théologie africaine, dans le contexte de l’après-guerre froide, doit relever de nouveaux déﬁs : ceux de la reconstruction du continent. Alors que le paradigme de libération prenait pour modèle le livre de l’Exode, le paradigme de reconstruction a voulu prendre pour modèle les livres d’Esdras et Néhémie. Mais s’agit-il d’un bon modèle ? En tout cas, cette référence a donné lieu à une discussion enrichissante dénonçant une utilisation analogique des textes qui n’exerce pas une réelle critique sur l’idéologie qui les sous-tend. Il convient en eﬀet de découvrir le revêtement culturel et les présupposés idéologiques des textes bibliques et de faire en sorte qu’ils ne soient pas un frein pour la compréhension et l’application du message révélé. D’ailleurs, l’étude des mythes a montré également que le propre du mythe est d’expliquer l’ordre existant en terme de discours historique et de le justiﬁer par référence à une base morale ou métaphysique. Ainsi, à côté des mythes d’attestation et de régulation, on trouve des mythes de légitimation. Ceux-ci peuvent avoir pour fonction de justiﬁer un pouvoir illégitime, un pouvoir central ou même des inégalités sociales. Les mythes deviennent ainsi les instruments eﬃcaces de la reproduction sociale : ils peuvent justiﬁer une généalogie inventée, cautionner des prétentions nouvelles, etc. Il ne faut donc pas croire que tout texte biblique se prête à une actualisation par voie d’identiﬁcation et d’analogie. C’est pourquoi Elelwani Farisani, se penchant sur les livres d’Esdras et Néhémie, constate que le modèle de reconstruction qu’ils reﬂètent est un modèle exclusionniste. Le « peuple du pays » (#am ha "ares. ) est exclu du programme de reconstruction. C’est que le texte obéit à des intérêts idéologiques où les déportés revenus de l’exil sont considérés comme la «race sainte » (Esd. 9:2), le vrai Israël (Ne. 1:6 ; 2:7; 13:3 ; Esd. 6:16–18), tandis que le peuple du pays—ceux d’Israël qui n’étaient pas partis en exil, à dis-

lire la bible dans le contexte africain

417

tinguer des nations installées en Juda—sont écartés, malgré leur désir de participer au processus de reconstruction (Esd. 4:2–3; Ne. 2:20). En Esdras-Néhémie, il y a une distinction nette entre la «communauté sainte » (Ne. 13:3), le peuple du pays ( #am ha"ares. ), les peuples du pays (goyê ha"ares. Esd. 6:21) et les femmes étrangères (Esd. 10:11). L’exclusion du peuple du pays par Néhémie soulève de leur part une forte opposition. Ils sont d’ailleurs soutenus par la prophétesse Noadiah (Ne 6:14) qui, pour cette raison est déconsidérée, dans la logique du livre. Pour E. Farisani, un tel modèle exclusionniste doit être dénoncé, car il ne peut pas constituer un paradigme eﬃcace pour le projet africain de reconstruction, qui implique la réconciliation nationale. Ce jugement est vrai, quel que soit le sens qu’on donne à l’expression #am ha"ares. 26. Si l’on doit lire la Bible du point de vue des opprimés et des marginalisés, les livres d’Esdras-Néhémie devront être lus dans la perspective du peuple du pays : leur exclusion ne peut que conduire à des conﬂits interminables. Pareille perspective a le mérite de nous faire lire l’histoire du point de vue des vaincus. N’est-on pas trop habitué à regarder l’histoire du point de vue des vainqueurs ? Les transactions entre le contexte africain et le texte biblique aboutissent ainsi à des résultats étonnants. D’une part, il y a une mise en exergue de certains textes dont le thème paraît pertinent pour telle situation et une sourdine sur d’autres textes, moins parlants ou contreproductifs. D’autre part, des textes habituellement peu lus peuvent obtenir un regain d’intérêt pour les mêmes raisons, tout comme on peut attacher de l’importance à des personnages ou des thèmes laissés délibérément de côté par le narrateur.

Conclusion : Lire la Bible avec un « cœur » africain Il est temps de conclure. Si j’ai mis dans l’intitulé de cette conclusion l’expression « lire avec un cœur africain », c’est pour plusieurs raisons. On lit avec les yeux et la bouche, ou—si l’on ne sait pas lire—on entend le texte avec ses oreilles. Le rapport entre le lecteur et le texte 26 Il y a eu quelques études consacrées à cette expression dont le sens est discuté : E. Würthwein, Der #amm ha"arez im Alten Testament (Stuttgart, 1936) ; R. De Vaux, “Le sens de l’expression «Peuple du pays » dans l’Ancien Testament et le rôle politique du Peuple en Israël,” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 58 (1964), pp. 167–172 ; A. Oppenheimer, The #am ha-aretz. A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period (Leiden, 1977).

418

andré kabasele mukenge

est exprimé dans la Bible par la catégorie de l’écoute : une écoute qui ne relève pas tant de l’activité sensorielle que de l’inclination du cœur et qui ordonne l’action. Quelqu’un qui parle avec tout son cœur est une personne engagée, impliquée dans ce qu’il dit. Le Bibliste qui confronte le texte avec le contexte africain contemporain et qui prend à cœur les questions que se pose la majorité des lecteurs africains de la Bible lit celle-ci avec un « cœur » africain. Lire la Bible avec un cœur africain est une manière de lire avec parti pris, pour l’Afrique. C’est ce parti pris qui actualise le message, en fait une nourriture pour la vie concrète. Ce parti pris a au moins la même valeur que celui que j’opère quand je prétends lire sans parti pris.

THE CROSS-TEXTUAL METHOD AND THE J STORIES IN GENESIS IN THE LIGHT OF A CHINESE PHILOSOPHICAL TEXT*

Craig Y.S. Ho This article consists of three parts: ﬁrst, a critical reﬂection on Archie Lee’s proposal of a “cross-textual” hermeneutics; second, a review of his cross-textual reading of Genesis 1–3; and third, a new reading of some of the J stories in Genesis 2–38 in the light of the teaching of the Chinese philosopher Kâo Tsze is presented. Against Mencius’ view that virtues are innate, Kâo Tsze believes that human nature is neither good nor bad and argues that the two basic instincts “to eat and to mate” are the common nature that humans share with other animals. 1. Archie Lee’s cross-textual approach: an evaluation In a short but important paper,1 Lee critically discusses and compares three approaches to the Bible. Lee does not hide his dissatisfaction with what he takes to be a kind of methodological chauvinism among European and American scholars who assume that their (Western) approaches to the Bible have universal validity. This assumption goes hand in hand with the idea of an absolute Bible preached to the Asians by missionaries. Understandably, exponents of various non-Western approaches to the Bible would sometimes include in their proposals similar reactions against the status quo of biblical scholarship which is perceived to be dominated by Western scholars; Lee’s reaction is not uncommon among those who wish to engage in non-Western modes of biblical interpretation.2 Yet some of these protests look quite a bit * This article is a revision of the paper upon which the congress paper was based. The title is updated accordingly to reﬂect the extra content. The research was funded by a grant (FRG/03–04/I28) from the Hong Kong Baptist University. I would like to thank Prof. Jane Lai, former Dean of Arts, HKBU, for her advice and support. 1 Archie C.C. Lee, “Biblical Interpretation in Asian Perspectives,” AJT 7 (1993), p. 35. The paper initiated a research program for Lee in the decade that followed. 2 I need only to cite one more example, Chinese feminist theologian Kwok Pui-lan,

420

craig y.s. ho

like attempts “to identify an interpreter’s cultural background in order to debunk his or her interpretation.”3 A better service may be done to biblical scholarship if we instead focus our energy on interesting biblical problems, i.e. either proposing new solutions or criticizing existing ones, along the lines of Lee’s own work. Lee rejects both an absolute Bible and the tacit claim of universal validity of diﬀerent types in biblical interpretation as practiced by Western biblical scholars. He calls theirs “the Text-Alone” approach. The justiﬁcation for this rejection is that the Bible was formed by, and addressed to, the problems of its writers and audience, i.e. the “JudeoChristian communities of faith,” and by deﬁnition the “socio-political experiences of injustice, suﬀering, exploitation and poverty in Asia were left outside.” In the form of a complaint, Lee asks: “How could the Asian realities of plurality and diversity in races, peoples, cultures, social institutions, religions, ideologies, etc. not have any bearing on the way the text is to be read?”4 Simply put, a Bible that is produced by a foreign culture is incapable of addressing the needs of Asian peoples if we just read and interpret the Bible alone without taking into consideration Asian experiences. The second approach that Lee also rejects is what he calls the “TextContext Interpretive Mode” of interpretation on the grounds that it is just a one-way application of the exegetical result of “the Text Alone” method to the living context of the modern reader, albeit with some correlation between the historical context of the biblical author and that of the readers. Its inadequacy lies in the assumed passiveness of the context of the modern reader. In a series of rhetorical questions put forward by D. Preman Niles, which Lee quotes, “Is theology always a matter of relating Text to Context? Is it not also a matter of relating Context to Text so that the Context may speak to the Text? Is Asia there to receive? Has it nothing to contribute?”5 I reproduce this quote Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World (Maryknoll, New York, 1995), p. 26, where she protests against a kind of “white male” biblical interpretation “dominated by European and American scholars” which is “inﬂuenced by their social and cultural background, their feminist reading is also colored by their construction of female identity, which should not be taken as representative of all women.” 3 John Barton, “Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel: Inﬂuences and Effects”, in: D. Smith-Christopher (ed.), Text & Experience (Sheﬃeld, 1995), p. 316. 4 Archie C.C. Lee, “Biblical Interpretation in Asian Perspective,” p. 36. 5 Lee, ibid, p. 37, in D. Perman Niles, “The Word of God and the People of Asia,” in: James T. Butler, Edgar W. Conrad, Ben C. Ollenburger (eds.), Understanding the Word. Essays in Honour of Bernhard W. Anderson (JSOTSup 37; Sheﬃeld, 1985), p. 282.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

421

in full because it seems that, in all likelihood, it is to this challenge that Lee’s new method has been proposed as a response. Lee’s new approach, which he coins “Cross-Textual Hermeneutics,”6 aims at making the Bible meaningful to Asian Christians whose (literary, cultural, and social) “texts” are put in a dialogical, mutually give-and-take relationship with the biblical text. Lee has not entirely given up the historical-critical approach, one of the many “Text-Alone” methodologies used by European and American scholars, but ﬁnds it wanting; unlike western scholars, Asian people were born into very different cultures with their own scriptural, cultural and social texts. Lee’s new way of reading makes it unnecessary for Christians of the nonwestern world to give up their own inherited texts. They should instead re-read them in the light of the Bible and re-read the Bible in their own light. A wonderful approach, but the immediate diﬃculty in the case of a cross-reading between the Bible and, say, Chinese texts is that those who cannot read (classical) Chinese can hardly play the game. Now what can we say of Lee’s proposal? First, within my limited knowledge of the ﬁeld of “Asian Hermeneutics” or “Asian Approaches,” I found Lee’s proposal one of the most systematically argued, backed up by his many published articles of the last decade. But do I agree with it? Now I do not want to spend too much time on methodology because too much of it may be counter-productive; I will therefore turn to a concrete example presently. But let me ﬁrst spend a little time on this. It is my opinion that whether one scholar agrees or disagrees with another scholar’s approach or method is not very important. In the end what we have to assess is the result itself, the interpretation itself, not the exegetical method; the two are not logically related. In fact I do not believe in methods, if by methods one means ways towards truth. I suppose it is now part of philosophical commonsense that all our empirical knowledge—including of course our knowledge about the Bible—is basically conjectural in character. I believe in critical discussion and that (hopefully) through discussion we might be able to ﬁlter away less promising conjectures. This is what Karl Popper called the method of trial and the elimination of error,7 a method all of us—from amoeba to Stephen Hawking—use every day in our 6

This term is now in the Dictionary of Third World Theologies. ed. Virginia Fabella & R.S. Sugirtharajah, (New York, 2000), pp. 60–62. 7 K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge, An Evolutionary Approach (Revised ed., Oxford, 1972, 1979).

422

craig y.s. ho

struggle for survival or in our search for better theories to explain our world, the Bible included. In our common endeavour of searching for better hypothesis or conjectures, instead of a (self-) justiﬁcation of the method what we need and have been doing is (inter-subjective) critical discussion of the result. I should leave my methodological discussion now and return to Lee’s “Cross-Textual Hermeneutics”. Here are my other responses. Suppose I was a philosopher and not a biblical scholar; why should I read just Socrates (469–399 BC), Plato (428? BC–347 BC), or Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC) or other Western philosophical classics? As a Chinese, should I not also read Laozi (570? BC–490? BC), Confucius (551? BC–479? BC), or Mencius (371? BC–289 BC), and cross-textually read them with the Greek philosophers? These great philosophers’ / educators’ works are not just intended to be taken as theoretical knowledge, they are meant to be applied; this is therefore a case similar to Lee’s proposal and demand: “our Asian perspectives must also be brought in to shed light in the interpretation of biblical texts. … It is imperative that the Biblical text (text A) has to be interpreted in our own religious texts (text B)”.8 The potential fruitfulness of cross-textual reading notwithstanding,9 Lee’s normative demand is at risk of making it too absolute. On the other hand, it makes sense to have (as required or optional) subjects like Comparative Scriptural / Cultural / Classical Texts in the curriculum of Theology or Religious Studies, or as part of a Comparative Religion course, in non-Western universities. However, I doubt Lee’s proposal would have much impact on the way ordinary Chinese or HK (i.e. Hong Kong) Christians read their Bibles. Half a century ago, most if not all educated Chinese could still read the Chinese Classics, but today, unless one studies Chinese Literature as a major in university, few HK university graduates are able to understand Confucius in the original without translating into modern Chinese or English. The situation would not be much better in China where students would rather spend more time on English than Classical Chinese. The uniﬁcation of the world—in economic, political, cultural, and linguistic aspects—is progressing so fast that the cultural conﬂict “Biblical Interpretation in Asian Perspectives,” p. 38. This could create a “culture clash” in one’s own mind and help us to learn from diﬀerent or even opposite points of view. For the importance of culture clash in the development of Western civilization, see Karl Popper, ch. 8 “Über den Zusammenprall von Kulturen” in his Auf der Suche nach einer besseren Welt (München / Zürich, 1984), pp. 127–136; En. tr. In Search of a Better World (London / New York, 1992), pp. 117–125. 8 9

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

423

between Christianity and Chinese culture is hardly felt today in HK or even in China. Today only Buddhist monk-scholars, Taoist practitioners, and scholars of these two religions or Chinese philosophy would genuinely have their own religious or cultural texts.10 Indigenous Chinese religions do not require their believers to study daily Buddhist or Taoist scriptures and these are as a consequence not intellectual religions on the popular level. In fact, religions are regarded as superstitions in Confucianism. Christianity is, however, very diﬀerent. It has inherited an intellectual culture of the study of the Bible from Judaism. Daily devotional Bible study is a popular form of this intellectual tradition, which for many Christians is as important as the observance of the Sabbath by Jews. For most Chinese people today classical Chinese culture is practically dead thanks to Mao’s decade of Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)11—as dead as Marxism or Communism, thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s opening policy which tries to mix controlled capitalism with uncontrolled political totalitarianism. A cultural and spiritual vacuum thus created has brought folk religions back to the public and has once again stirred up interest among intellectuals and scholars in Confucianism and Buddhism as well as Christianity. Some of them become involved in Christian studies, and among them some have even found a new personal faith in Jesus Christ, but have remained outside of the Church. They now carry a label called “Cultural Christians.”12 HK people do not 10 Probably the most famous example of this is Lit-sen Chang (1904–1996), ﬁrst student then Distinguished Professor of Missions at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, who came from the traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, but converted when he was 53. His conversion experience was so complete that he gave up all his cultural texts and later became a theologian. This example shows that the question of how one should deal with one’s own cultural text is more a matter of personal decision than an issue for scholarly settlement. This is one of the reasons why I doubt Lee’s research program or indeed other similar proposals would have any great impact even on other biblical scholars or theologians. A brief biography of Lit-sen Chang is available on http://www.chinahorizon. org /lit_sen_chang.htm. 11 A historical project on “Chinese Holocaust Memorial” has recently been formed which was initiated by Wang You Qin, Victims of the Cultural Revolution. An Investigative Account of Persecution, Imprisonment and Murder (Hong Kong, 2004), also available online at http://www.chinese-memorial.org. 12 A very interesting debate about this phenomenon was kicked oﬀ by an article in a local Christian weekly newspaper written in 1995 by Lo Ping-cheung of the department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University. The label was ﬁrst used by a church leader in the ’80s. About two dozen articles ensuing from this debate are now collected in Josephine Leung (ed.), Cultural Christian: Phenomenon and Argument (Hong Kong, 1997).

424

craig y.s. ho

share such cultural or spiritual disorientation and as a result some of the traditional cultural values are better preserved here. Yet, being an international and open society where culture clash has been happening daily for over a century, the eﬀect of traditional Chinese cultural or belief systems on HK people’s outlook of life is fading daily. Thus when Tung Chee-hwa, the Chief Executive of the HK SAR vowed to form a strong government on the basis of Confucianism in 1997, the local intelligentsia showed no enthusiasm at all and soon such wishful thinking became a laughing-stock.13 Many in HK would look to the outspoken pro-democracy Catholic Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun as one of their spiritual leaders and a guide in issues of policy opinion. To conclude, it could be said that when Chinese, be they in China or HK, become Christians they virtually have no cultural or religious texts to give up. Furthermore, there is an important asymmetry between the status of the Bible and the status of Chinese cultural texts in the perception of ordinary Christians, a situation that does not seem to have been given suﬃcient attention by Lee. Our discussion also shows that cultural texts do not have a ﬁxed status or value in our mind. Ruling ideology, degree of openness to outside inﬂuence, and most important of all culture clash, are factors that, even in just a few decades, would change the cultural face of a nation of over a billion people. It seems to me therefore that the cultural tension described in Lee’s 1993 proposal may be valid in the period to which he refers, when Western missionary work was still active in China—especially during the early twenty century when many Chinese intellectuals reacted against Christianity as a form of cultural intrusion (as part of the invasion of Western imperialism). Such tension has virtually disappeared today in China and HK.14 However, as a hermeneutics for how the Bible could be read, his proposal seems to me still to be valid, not by virtue of my cultural identity, but for its potential intellectual fruitfulness. 13 Confucianism has no market in democratic and capitalistic HK because it is a philosophy of life regulated by certain social virtues like loyalty (zhong), ﬁlial piety (xiao), benevolence (ren), and propriety (li), etc. Together with a ﬁxed social hierarchy, its ultimate objective is to achieve complete social and political stability. It is an attempt to form a totalitarian rule from within the human will so that authorities at various levels can be maintained. It is Confucius’ solution—a kind of human social engineering—to the problem of political instability in a very confused historical period. Confucius was the ﬁrst engineer of the soul in China and I hope (with His mercy) Mao Zedong was the last one. 14 In its place is the tension between people’s yearning for freedom of religion and government suppression.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

425

2. Lee’s cross-textual reading of Genesis 1–3 Lee has published three articles dealing with the creation account(s) in Genesis and in ancient Chinese texts.15 The second one entitled “Genesis 1 from the Perspective of a Chinese Creation Myth” was published in 1993, just after his methodological paper discussed above, and serves as the ﬁrst demonstration of his new method. In this article Lee begins by summarizing the new method he proposed in the hermeneutics paper; then a comparison is made between the idea of Chaos in Genesis and in the Chinese story known as “the myth of P"an-ku,” with the conclusion that the Chinese story agrees with the Hebrew story better than “the Christian theological position of creatio ex nihilo”.16 The third part is a discussion on the motif of “Separation of Heaven and Earth” in the two texts, with a comparison between the opposite items being separated in the Genesis story and the dualistic, opposite but complementary, pair of cosmic forces, yin and yang. Surprising parallelism is found in both in that “creation as an act of separation implies a process of polarity and multiplicity.”17 This is then followed by a discussion of the unique feature of the P"an-ku myth, which is the death of P"an-ku the ﬁrst-born among everything created, the decomposition of whose body gives birth to all life. The concluding remarks call for attention to interesting parallels and diﬀerences between the two creation stories. A justiﬁcation for his “cross-textual” approach is repeated: “In order to uphold our integrity as both Christians and Chinese, we have to embrace the two texts.”18 My ﬁrst response is that this work of Lee’s is an excellent demonstration of the common urge of human beings, however far apart in space and time, to explain themselves and the world. This urge and the creation myths thus generated is the ultimate origin of science.19 Moreover, accidental similarities between the two stories show 15 Archie C.C. Lee, “The Dragon, the Deluge and Creation Theology”, Association for Theological Education in South Asia Occasional Papers (Singapore: ATESEA) 8 (1989), pp. 110–123; “Genesis 1 from the Perspective of a Chinese Creation Myth”, in: A. Graeme Auld (ed.), Understanding Poets and Prophets. Essays in Honour of George Wishart Anderson (JSOTSup 152; Sheﬃeld, 1993), pp. 186–198; “The Chinese Creation Myth of Nu Kua and the Biblical Narrative in Genesis 1–11,” BibInt 2,3 (1994), pp. 312–324. 16 Archie C.C. Lee, “Genesis 1,” p. 188, a view repeated on p. 189. 17 Lee, ibid, p. 192. 18 Lee, ibid, p. 195. 19 According to Karl Popper, science has its origin in myths. “Scientiﬁc theories are not just the results of observation. They are, in the main, the products of myth-making

426

craig y.s. ho

that pre-scientiﬁc peoples thought pre-scientiﬁcally and that sometimes they thought alike! This provides good literary support to the idea that humanity is a unity. Lee’s work constitutes an interesting discovery in its own right, suﬃcient to justify cross-textual comparison, though it really needs no justiﬁcation. The above implications that we draw from his illuminating discoveries are not, however, quite in line with his emphasis on the cultural identity of the interpreter. With suﬃcient knowledge of Chinese culture, any scholar could, in theory, make discoveries similar to those made by Lee.20 Here lies the important idea of objectivity, which if not already a casualty of so-called Postmodernism, has often been denied to our discipline. All texts are cultural products by deﬁnition and even exegetical activities can be cultural, relative, and subjective. But the result of exegesis (or even eisegesis) is not. And in the same vein, take for example ﬁlial pietism, which may be culturally very Chinese, but the problem of double loyalty to God and ancestors is not, neither is a solution21 to it. Cross-textual studies would therefore encourage empathy and appreciation of other cultures and I believe in time all cultural texts of diﬀerent peoples would be regarded as a common heritage of a uniﬁed humankind. My second response is directed to Lee’s cross-reading of the two creation texts. His attention to the parallel aspects between them seems to have blurred his focus on the uniqueness of the biblical story, not in comparison with the Chinese story but in contradistinction to other creation stories within the Hebrew Bible. While Genesis 1 is clearly a creation story, its unique concern may lie elsewhere. It is now com-

and of tests.” Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientiﬁc Knowledge (4th ed.; London and Henley, 1972), p. 128. 20 Reasoning along this line would lead to what Popper called “epistemology without a knowing subject;” see Popper, Objective Knowledge, pp. 106–152. 21 Problems of this kind, of being equally faithfully to God and other authority in one’s “pagan” culture, are as old as the OT itself. Elisha was probably the ﬁrst one to tackle it for the “proselyte” Naaman who served a pagan king: “In this matter may the LORD pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon your servant in this matter. He said to him, ‘Go in peace.’” (2 Kings 5:18–19a, RSV). This problem of double loyalty is very similar to the struggle of young Christians in traditional Chinese families. K.K. Yeo has sought a solution to the problem of ﬁlial pietism that Chinese Christians are facing from the New Testament in his Rhetorical Interaction in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. A Formal Analysis with Preliminary Suggestions for a Chinese, Cross-Cultural Hermeneutic (BibInt Series 9; Leiden / New York / Köln, 1995), pp. 217–222.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

427

monly accepted that the literary picture of the chaotic and violent beginning of the world is something that the ancient Israelites borrowed from their surrounding milieu. It therefore is not a unique feature of Genesis 1: 2. What is unique about it is the seven-day scheme of creation,22 which is prefaced with a violent and chaotic beginning and concluded with divine tranquillity: Elohim resting on the ﬁrst-ever Sabbath. In this rational structure of creation, each day’s work prepares for the work of the following day. It may even be said that, in contrast to other creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Ps. 74: 12–17; Ps. 89: 11–13), Genesis 1 depicts Elohim less as a creator and more as a fulﬁlled worker who looks back every day to his creative accomplishment with great satisfaction. The six working days are crowned by the seventh day, the only day of the week that Elohim blesses, as He blesses the animals (v. 22) and the humans (v. 28). Yet Elohim sanctiﬁes neither the animals nor the humans, just the seventh day. The reason given is strange enough: because on this very day he has stopped working (2: 3). Thus the single day when Elohim rests seems to be more signiﬁcant for the Priestly author than the other six working days. Creation in Genesis 1 has been planned such that it has to be completed in six days and all creating is preparation for the divine rest. A common mistake of interpretation is to take the creation of humans as the pinnacle of Elohim’s creative activities. But “Genesis 1:1–2:4a is not anthropocentric. Man is but a creature in the creation of the Creator, Elohim. The Sabbath is the conclusion, culmination, and witness to His work of creation (cf. Exodus 20:8–11).”23 It is the Sabbath that really matters for the Priestly author.24 Even humans are intentionally arranged to be the last items of creation near the end of the sixth day, the busiest day of the week. The ﬁrst thing that humans do is to witness and (probably) experience with Elohim a day of rest:25 22 J.E. Atwell has an interesting proposal for “An Egyptian Source for Genesis I,” JTS NS, 51 (2000), pp. 441–477, yet he maintains that the seven day scheme of creation is “a development in the Hebrew phase of the tradition” (p. 471) for its use of a lunar calendar which measures the week in seven days whereas the solar calendar of the Egyptians measures the week in ten days. 23 M. Fishbane, Biblical Text and Texture. A Literary Reading of Selected Texts (Schocken Books, 1979; Oxford, 1998), p. 11. 24 Gen. 1 is a narrative expansion from the 4th commandment, Gen.17 from the law of circumcision. Some laws might have been responses to narratives as C. Carmichael, The Spirit of Biblical Law (Athens & London, 1996), has suggested however. 25 The fourth commandment in Ex. 20: 8–11 refers to Genesis 1 as the ground for human imitation. This is a clear case of imitation of God in cultic matters. Another

428

craig y.s. ho

the reader is left to consider this possibility, the possibility that man was made for the Sabbath. Without this idea, it is inconceivable that the violation of the Sabbath is punishable by death (Ex. 31:14). Genesis 1 is the Priestly author’s way of saying that the Sabbath is as important as, if not actually more important than, the origin of the world and humanity. This understanding of Genesis 1 might have existed down to Christ’s time but He disagrees with it (Mk 2: 27) and takes instead Deuteronomy’s (Deut. 5: 12–15) view—the Sabbath was made for man— as the correct understanding.26 I hope my interpretation is true to the cultural-religious concern of its ancient author. Thus, while I think there is merit in Lee’s cross-textual reading between two texts in that it may enhance our appreciation of the unity within cultural diversity, there is also a danger of losing sight of the uniqueness of one or both stories. 3. Food and sex: the J stories of Genesis in the light of a philosophical text In this third part of the article I want to make my ﬁrst contribution to this ﬁeld. My way of reading does not fully comply with Lee’s requirement of cross-reading two texts with more or less equal or comparable attention to each of them. Yet I agree with him that insight from non-biblical texts might shed useful light on our understanding of the biblical text. I shall trace a pair of themes—Food and Sex— in Chinese culture and in the J stories in Genesis. Although classical Chinese texts live mainly if not only in ivory towers and are practically dead for most Chinese people, especially the younger generation in HK, some simple ideas or sayings from the Chinese classics are so wellknown that they aﬀect how Chinese people see and live in the world. I

similar example is the idea of clean animals: food for the holy people and the holy God should be the same. “Holiness” does not seem to be an ethical concept in P and H and the emphasis is on external observance instead of correct motivation. For the relation between Gen. 1 and dietary law, see E. Firmage, “Genesis 1 and the Priestly Agenda,” JSOT 82 (1999), pp. 97–114. C.S. Rodd, however, may be right in denying that the OT requires God’s people to (ethically) imitate God in his Glimpses of a Strange Land. Studies in Old Testament Ethics (OTS; Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 65–76. 26 Deuteronomy, with its humanitarian outlook, corrects Ex. 20: 8–11 and omits capital punishment for the violation of the Sabbath. A social rationale is oﬀered (Deut. 5: 14) on the basis of the Covenant Code (23: 12) to replace the mythological one; see M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972), p. 222.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

429

have in my mind ﬁlial piety and the enjoyment of good food, which are two of the most conspicuous aspects of Chinese culture, the former an ethical dimension and the latter social. Peoples of all cultures enjoy good food but none goes to such an extreme as the Chinese in taking so much risk just to satisfy the appetite. It is now known that the SARS epidemic of 2003 is related to the Chinese habit of eating exotic animals. It is jokingly said, and certainly not with approval, that anything with four feet is edible for the Chinese, except the table. For the Chinese there are no animals too unclean, too sacred, or too friendly to be cooked and served. The ubiquity of Chinese restaurants all over the world, especially in HK, is a sign of such obsession with food. In HK, the question “Where do you ﬁnd food?” means “What are you doing for a living?” Filial piety is more than just honouring the parents and oﬀering food to— having communion with—ancestors. A son also bears the responsibility to perpetuate the family name by means of producing male oﬀspring. This second concern together with a one-child policy in China has produced a severe imbalance between male and female populations not known in other countries. These two basic concerns with food (survival) and sex (progeny) are very Chinese indeed. Now let us turn to a short but interesting dialogue between Mencius and the philosopher Kâo Tsze concerning human nature: The philosopher Kâo said, ‘Life is what we call nature!’ Mencius asked him, ‘Do you say that by nature you mean life, just as you say that white is white?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ was the reply. Mencius added, ‘Is the whiteness of a white feather like that of white snow, and the whiteness of white snow like that of white jade?’ Kâo again said ‘Yes.’ ‘Very well,’ pursued Mencius. ‘Is the nature of a dog like the nature of an ox, and the nature of an ox like the nature of a man?’ The philosopher Kâo said, ‘To eat and to mate27 is nature. Benevolence is internal and not external; righteousness is external and not internal.’

27 The Works of Mencius Book VI, Part I: Kâo Tsze, 3.1–4.1, in The Chinese Classics, vol. 2 (En. tr. James Legge; Oxford, 1895; 3rd ed., Hong Kong, 1960), p. 397. “Sex” and “color” share the same Chinese character but here James Legge misunderstood the text and translated the beginning sentence of ch. 4 wrongly as “To enjoy food and delight in colours is nature.” An online version of this text is available on http://www.ishwar.com/confucianism/holy_mencius /part_21.html. Charles Muller’s rendering is an improvement: “By nature we desire food and sex.” See http://members.tripod.com/wckfc_library/mencius.htm.

430

craig y.s. ho

Every Chinese irrespective of his education level knows that “to eat and to mate is human nature” (four Chinese characters), though most would not know who actually said it and many would attribute it to Confucius. This low view of humanity is a direct opposite to Mencius’s, who preached that humans are naturally good and that the cardinal virtues such as benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), respect for rites (li), and intelligence (zhi) are innate and that education consists of cultivating these inborn virtues. Kâo Tsze, on the other hand, argued that not all of them are “internal” and most of them are “external” qualities socially acquired or imposed on us. The two things that can be securely shown to be human nature are the need to eat and the urge to mate, without which life simply cannot be perpetuated. (The implication is that ethical values upon which virtues depend are man-made and not inborn.)28 Mencius, in my opinion, had lost the argument and complained that Kâo Tsze had not understood righteousness because he took it as external.29 I would go no further into this very interesting discussion between philosophers and point out immediately that although the Old Testament does not have such abstract discussion of human nature or virtues, it also has two very diﬀerent ideals of life. The ﬁrst can be represented by the Law and the Prophets and is epitomized by Micah’s understanding of the will of YHWH in 6:8. The ethical teachings of the Law and the Prophets are summarized and expanded in the form of poetic sayings in the Book of Proverbs. The author of Ecclesiastes, a skeptic and critic of traditional values found in the Law and the Prophets, however, cannot see a direct relationship between being a good man and a happy life. He therefore advises the young men thus, “Go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy. … Enjoy happiness with a woman you love all the ﬂeeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun—all your ﬂeeting days.” (9: 7–9a, JPS) This hedonist theme is repeated many times in Ecclesiastes (2: 24; 3: 12–13; 5: 18–19; 8: 15; 9:7–9; 11: 8). He argues that the fulﬁllment of these two basic needs is “a gift of God” (5:19). I suspect that another important biblical author, the so-called Yahwist (J), shares similar view that food (survival) and sex (progeny) are two central aspects of life, 28 This comes close to Kant’s view, that values and moral laws do not have intrinsic qualities and do not depend on an authority but rather are man-made by human choice, just as the laws of nature are human creations imposed upon nature and not derivable from nature itself. 29 Unfortunately, this is the only place where Kâo Tsze’s view of the two instincts of human nature is mentioned in The Works of Mencius.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

431

albeit with diﬀerent emphasis. It could be demonstrated that these two motifs run through virtually all J stories in Genesis. Space allows me to show you only several of them, out of about twenty. 3.1. Garden of Eden: Choice between immortality and procreativity (Gen. 2:4b–3:24) In the Hebrew Bible, e.g. in the Song of Songs, the garden is sometimes associated with sex; eating in the garden serves as a metaphor for lovemaking.30 A verse from the Songs could prove the point:31 (Man) I come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. (Woman) Eat, O friends, and drink: drink deeply, O lovers! (Song 5: 1, RSV)32

YHWH’s forewarning and prohibition (“you shall not eat”) to Adam, followed immediately by the account of the creation of a partner for him, and the description of the eating (“she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate”—a give and take action like love-making) should perhaps be taken metaphorically in the sense used in Song of Songs. Nevertheless, sex in Gen. 2–3 is more than 30 For a discussion of “Garden Eroticism” in ANE and biblical literatures, see T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, Genesis 2–3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven, 2000), pp. 107–111. 31 Gen. 2–3 is always interpreted metaphorically, but, perhaps aﬀected by a still very common belief in an early pre-exilic date of J, one could hardly ﬁnd a commentator or interpreter who would relate the Garden of Eden and the garden in Song of Songs which “is usually dated in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C.”, G.W. Anderson, A Critical Introduction to the Old Testament (London, 1959), p. 195. However, the number of scholars who hold a (post-)exilic date of J is increasing, e.g. J.L. Alonso-Schökel (“Motivos sapienciales y de alianza en Gn 2–3,” Bib 43 [1962], pp. 295–316), F.V. Winnett (“Re-examining the foundations,” JBL 84 [1965], pp. 1–19), J. van Seters (Prologue to History, The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis [Louisville, Kentucky, 1992]), and J. Blenkinsopp (The Pentateuch, An Introduction to the First Five Book of the Bible [London, 1992]). My own view converges with their views, though not exactly for the same reasons. 32 For other garden references in the Song of Songs, see 4: 12, 15, 16; 6:2. J’s description that “the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of YHWH” (Gen. 13:10) is an association and anticipation of another sexual event in Sodom and Gomorrah, the sinful cities (Gen. 13: 13).

432

craig y.s. ho

just physical enjoyment. J’s interest is more in its power to procreate—a power originally belonging only to the gods. The Eden story is J’s way of saying that YHWH has oﬀered to the ﬁrst human couple a choice between two modes of existence in terms of two divine attributes, viz. immortality or procreativity, symbolized by the two trees. They could choose to live in the “Garden of YHWH” (Gen. 13: 10), sustained by the Tree of Life and live eternally but without the knowledge to produce oﬀspring.33 This in fact has been their unsaid choice before the serpent intervenes. Or, they can acquire the knowledge—through eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—to reproduce and pass on their lives to their progeny. But then they can no longer live in the Garden of God and partake the food of everlasting life.34 They must live outside the Garden of Eden to till the ground to produce their own food. Yet they could have (sexual) love, family and related problems, and then die. This second option is available to them albeit with divine injunction and severe prior warning. Whereas the Tree of Life can give them immortality but immortality alone, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil gives them sexual consciousness and hence the knowledge to reproduce, but with a price: death. It is a choice between Heaven and Earth, between naivety with immortality and sexuality with death, i.e. between inside and outside the Garden of YHWH. No one understands these two options of Gen. 2–3 better than 33 The tacit allusion to Cain’s fratricide and the reference to the knowledge of “good and evil” and “the wisdom of the angel of God” in 2 Samuel 14 brings us back to Gen. 2–4. The wise woman of Tekoa is here making two parallels: Absalom with Cain, David with Adam, and thus accusing David of Adam’s (sexual) sin and invoking Yahweh’s punishment when she says, “for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you!” (2 Sam. 14: 17, RSV). She is not praising David’s discernment but accusing him of eating the forbidden fruit! 34 I think James Barr (The Garden of Eden, p. 58) misunderstands Gen. 3:22 and the nature of the Tree of Life. Its fruit does not give eternal life by magic as Barr seems to assume. But life can be lived forever as long as the fruit of the Tree of Life is consumed. His view that Adam and Eve have had sex before eating the forbidden fruit (The Garden of Eden, p. 66) cannot be deduced from the text. When one sees the either-or situation of the consequence of the human action (or choice), and the connection of the Tree of Knowledge with sexual awareness, a better interpretation is that Adam and Eve have not made love before eating the forbidden fruit. Their sudden awareness of nakedness indicates that they have acquired now a new power—the knowledge of life extension by procreation, which begins with sexual awareness. It seems therefore that the reverse of what Barr suggests is more likely to be true: Adam and Eve have all along been eating from the Tree of Life before taking the fruits from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But after eating the forbidden fruits, they are no longer allowed to eat from the Tree of Life and hence their expulsion from the Garden.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

433

Moses the exegete in Deuteronomy who seems to be echoing the ﬁrst ever choice humans have made when he says, “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil” (Deut. 30: 15).35 Eve and Adam have chosen Earth and death under the seductive persuasion of “the serpent”36 but they do not seem to have any regret or complaint. It is true that YHWH has commanded Adam not to eat the forbidden fruits (2: 17; 3: 11) but it is not entirely clear that the Yahwist stands on the side of YHWH against the humans or that YHWH’s veracity is beyond doubt.37 I believe that the story of the Garden of Eden is the Yahwist’s way of saying that “to eat and to mate is human nature”. For J, to live as immortals in the Garden is not the destiny of humans.38 In fact his view is a direct contradiction to P’s view of human destiny, crystallized in the Priestly creation story. For P, humans are called to live like God on Earth: to work only for six days and rest on the Sabbath just Elohim did, and to eat like Elohim, i.e. to consume only those animals, clean animals, that can be oﬀered to Him,39 etc. “Holiness” is the state of being God; to be holy is “to 35 This “See” (äàø) is important, because while Eve “saw” (äàøú) in the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil only positive qualities, Moses sees in them the painful consequences of disobedience. 36 Just as the shape of the well is a symbol of female genitalia (Prov. 5: 15; Song 4: 12–15), “the serpent” might have been a metaphor for the phallus—an objectiﬁcation of female sexual desire. This explains why it is Eve and not Adam who is ﬁrst tempted and why it is she who is punished for desiring her husband (3:16b) and not the other way around. It is this desire that has put her into temptation. 37 See D.R.G., “What is Genesis 2–3 about?” ExpTim 92 (1980–1981), pp. 8–10. R.N. Whybray also suggests that “it was God, not the snake, who ﬁrst put the possibility of disobedience into their [Adam and Eve’s] minds; the only additional information that they learned from the snake was God’s threat of punishment by death for disobedience was an empty one.” (“The Immorality of God: Reﬂection on Some Passages in Genesis, Job, Exodus and Numbers,” JSOT 72 [1996], p. 94). C. Carmichael, “The Paradise Myth,” in A Walk in the Garden, pp. 47–63, tries to show that the Yahwist is more sympathetic to Eve than to God and that “her disobedience is justiﬁed and is akin to that form of commendable action we term civil disobedience” (p. 60). 38 Despite the interpretation of Wisdom 2:23, it does not seem to me that Gen. 2–3 is lamenting the loss of immortality. It is true that in the Epic of Gilgamesh (London, 1972), pp. 116–117, the serpent has snatched the plant “which restores youth to a man”. There is no indication, however, that the plant can give eternal life. The Yahwist probably knew the Epic and even agreed with its view of death as the ﬁnal destiny of the humans, but he transformed the serpent from an enemy to a (truthful) friend, only to be turned into an enemy again by Yahweh Elohim. 39 Note the progressive revelation of the food law: ﬁrst only vegetables (Gen. 1), added later are all the animals but not their blood (Gen. 9:3–4), and ﬁnally unclean animals are excluded (Lev. 11). Jacob Milgrom thinks that the ethical idea of sacredness and inviolability of life is built into the dietary law of eating only clean animals,

434

craig y.s. ho

be like God” in the cultic sense. But for J, Adam and Eve are faced with a choice between immortal half-god and fully humans. Or, to put it another way, this is a choice between a happy immortal child and a (usually?) unhappy mortal grown-up.40 They “eat” the forbidden fruits and at once a choice is made and immediately they become aware that they have obtained the knowledge to enjoy sex, to mate and to reproduce. With this choice made and after being expelled from the Garden, from now on Adam and Eve and all humanity must face two basic problems: survival (the food theme) and perpetuation of family (the sex theme). These two problems, it can be shown, run through most of the J stories. And through this very ﬁrst of the J stories we see the historical in the mythical, universal human issues in a Hebrew tale, even human aspiration vis-à-vis divine injunction. The ﬁrst J story in Genesis has been interpreted otherwise,41 but mostly independently of other J stories. Both problems of survival and oﬀspring are solved (Gen. 4) when Adam “knew” Eve and she gave birth to two brothers who were able to support the family by farming and sheep rearing. But Cain proved to be an unworthy heir in killing his brother. Cain’s oﬀspring, in spite of their successful culture (4:17–22), did not take life seriously (4:23–24). The problem of progeny, of worthy heir, remained; we are then told that Adam “knew”42 Eve “again”, and as a result a worthy heir was born whose son began to worship YHWH. i.e. cattle, sheep and goats, “eﬀectively eliminat[ing] the entire animal kingdom from human consumption”, Leviticus (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2004), xii. Yet it seems that it is the sacredness of these three types of animals that is emphasized for the simple reason that it is upon their lives as domestic animals that the lives of the nomadic people depend. A sound concept of sacredness of life must imply abstinence from killing (and eating) all kinds of animal life–an idea not found in the OT but in Buddhism. 40 Cf. Lyn M. Bechtel, “Genesis 1.4b–3.24: A Myth about Human Maturation,” JSOT 67 (1995), pp. 3–26. 41 For a political interpretation, see N. Wyatt, “Interpreting the Creation and the Fall story in Genesis 2–3,” ZAW 93 (1981), pp. 10–21; and for a collection of other views, see P. Morris and Deborah Sawyer (ed.) A Walk in the Garden, Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (JSOTSup 136; Sheﬃeld, 1992). Noteworthy is John Sawyer’s view that Gen. 2–3 is J’s expansion of P’s idea of “image of God”, “The Image of God, the Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” ibid, pp. 64–73. The Food or Survival theme is compatible with the view of T. Stordalen, “Man, Soil, Garden: Basic Plot in Genesis 2–3 Reconsidered,” JSOT 53 (1992), pp. 3–26. For a brief discussion of diﬀerent approaches, see T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, pp. 240–242. 42 This is an intentional allusion back to the Garden Story in Gen. 2–3. J could have used a euphemism like “went into,” which he in fact uses after Gen. 4, e.g. in the story of Judah and Tamar.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

435

3.2. Yahwist supplement to the Priestly ﬂood story (J fragments in Gen. 6:1–9:29) The Yahwistic supplement to the Priestly ﬂood story begins and ends with problematic sex: the “seeing” of the sons of God43 and their taking as wives the daughters of men (Gen. 6: 1–4), and a human son’s (Ham’s) sighting the nakedness of his father (Gen. 9: 20–29). The divine-human oﬀspring could potentially live forever and YHWH therefore sets a limit to human longevity. The divine-human boundary has almost been broken by Adam and Eve inside the Garden of Eden. Now the sons of God are about to do the same thing outside the Garden and YHWH therefore interferes again. Immortality is now completely out of reach to humanity. Commentaries and interpretations tend to leave out the Yahwistic episode of “Noah the wine-maker” (9: 20–27) as some sort of appendix to the ﬂood story. It should, however, be included as an integral part of it. Linguistic aﬃnity between the Garden story Adam and Eve of Gen. 2–3 and the vineyard story of Noah is everywhere: (a) “YHWH Elohim planted a garden in Eden” (2:8) || Noah “planted a vineyard” (9:20); (b) Adam was a tiller in the Garden of Eden (2:15) || “Noah was the ﬁrst tiller of the ADAMAH” in the re-created world (9:20) (c) Adam and Eve take the fruit (grapes?) and become aware of their nakedness (3:7) || Noah drinks the wine he has made from his grapes, lying naked in the tent (9:21); (d) YHWH Elohim makes “garments of skins” and cover their nakedness (3:21) || Shem and Japheth cover the nakedness of their father with “garment” (9:23), in both special eﬀort is made; (e) the ADAMAH is cursed due to Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruits that leads to the awareness of his nakedness (3:17) || Ham’s sons is cursed for the father’s acquiring of forbidden knowledge of his father’s nakedness (9:25); (f) Adam is expelled “to work (ãáòì) the ADAMAH” (3:23) || Ham is to be “slave of the slaves” (éãáò ãáò) (9:25).44 The above links reinforce our sexual interpretation of Gen. 2–3. The two garden tales are not only tightly connected, each of them also These sons of God, who commit other crimes in Ps. 82. The reason why it is Canaan, not his father Ham, that is cursed is because in the Eden story, although it is Adam who has sinned, the ADAMAH is cursed. 43 44

436

craig y.s. ho

follow a (re)creation story. This is one of the reasons for treating the tale of Noah’s vineyard as part of the ﬂood/recreation story. Commentators have all along been wondering why it is Canaan who is cursed and not his father Ham who has sinned. The reason is rhetorical and literary and not theological or ethical. In the story of the ﬁrst garden, although it is Adam who has “sinned”, what is cursed is the ADAMAH “from which he was taken” (Gen. 3: 23), i.e. cursing the originator for the sin of the originated. Likewise, but in opposite manner, the curse on Ham the originator (father) is transferred to the originated (son). Canaan is called “slave of slaves” because the ﬁrst man is “Adam of ADAMAH”. Much has been said about the wisdom provenance of Gen. 2–3 and we still wonder what kind of fruits that Adam and Eve have eaten. Perhaps the advice to refuse the temptation of wine in Prov. 23: 31–32 could be of help: Do not look (àøú) at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent (Öçð), and stings like an adder.

It is exactly advice like this that is not available to the ﬁrst humans and so we have Eve falling into temptation: Now the serpent (Öçðä) was more subtle … (3:1) So when the woman saw (äàøú) that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, … (Gen. 3:6, RSV)

Grapes (fresh or dried) are forbidden to the Nazirites (Num. 6: 3–4) and wine relaxes moral alertness and resistance to sexual temptation (so Noah). The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil might have been a grapevine and on its branches the serpent coils itself. If that is the case, then both YHWH and Noah have planted the same kind of tree. Note the interesting pattern of the motifs of food and sex in the Yahwistic supplements: Forbidden marriage (forbidden sex) → sacriﬁce for YHWH (Food for God) → Noah’s wine (Food for human enjoyment) → Noah’s nakedness seen by Ham (Sex motif). The story of Noah’s vineyard, the second garden story in Genesis, is J’s way of saying (i) that even the most blameless and righteous man cannot be exempted from “the bite of the serpent”—the curse of the ﬁrst garden story is working in the second—and (ii) Ham is ruled out as a worthy heir due to his sexual sin.

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

437

3.3. The lying patriarch (Gen. 12:10–20) The next episode we turn to is an “eisodus-exodus” story: Abram and Sarai in Egypt. The story begins with famine in Canaan, a survival and second problem. The ﬁrst problem is Sarai’s infertility noted a little earlier (11:30). Now Abram wants to solve both at one go by migrating to Egypt. We often wonder how a man like Abram would be ready to sacriﬁce his sexual right to his wife. Could his lie be part of a plan? Is his fear justiﬁed? Could it be an excuse? Who beneﬁts most when Sarai is taken away from Abram for good? Is this his clever way to give away a barren wife—to a wealthier and more powerful husband—so as to acquire another and rekindle the hope of progeny? Is Sarai’s silence her acquiescence? In any event, Abram did not succeed in giving away Sarai to the Egyptian king; soon Sarai would give, unwillingly of course, her Egyptian maid (Gen. 16) to her husband in order to produce an heir and perhaps in order to save the marriage, too. A son will soon be born but the problem of a proper heir remains. 3.4. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19) This chapter has two stories. The longer one is about the homosexual advance of the men of Sodom against the two angels (1–29) and the second concerns the incest between Lot and his two daughters. The food motifs can easily be seen in both of the stories. Lot’s oﬀering of hospitality (with unleavened bread) (19:3) and the wine given to Lot by his two daughters. The most interesting thing about these two stories is their aﬃnity with the ﬂood story which also consists of two parts. Schematically, their correspondence is very neat indeed: Gen. 6–9 (J in P)

Gen. 19 (J)

Divine-human marriage: “sons of the gods” taking initiatives (J) (sex motif)

Human-divine sexual assault: “the men of the city”, the men of Sodom, taking initiatives (sex motif)

Destruction by ﬂood (P)

Destruction by ﬁre

Only Noah’s family is saved (P)

Only Lot’s family is saved

Animal sacriﬁce for YHWH (J) (food motif)

Unleavened bread for the two angels (food motif) (v. 3)

438

craig y.s. ho

Gen. 6–9 (J in P)

Gen. 19 (J)

Incest story involving Noah and Ham; wine taken by the father (J) (food-sex motifs)

Incest story involving Lot and two daughters; wine oﬀered by the daughters. (food-sex motifs)

Ham’s son Canaan is cursed (J)

Ammonites and Moabites are prohibited from entering YHWH’s assembly (cursed!) (Deut. 23:3).

When read in J’s association of the fertile cities with the Garden of Eden (13:10) and the thematic and linguistic aﬃnity displayed above, Gen. 19 is J’s third garden story and is also a story concerned with problems of survival and progeny. The survival problem now is not too little food but too much food in the fertile valley so that excessive energy is directed to perverted sexual adventures. “With a full belly and in warm clothes, a man thinks of sex,” goes a Chinese saying. Humans sin in poverty and prosperity. Interestingly both uncle and nephew have a similar problem of obtaining progeny. But even more intriguing is that solutions are usually oﬀered by the females. It was Eve who gave the forbidden fruit to an innocent Adam in the ﬁrst garden story. And just as Sarai oﬀers her Egyptian maid as a solution to the problem of her infertility (Gen. 16: 1–4), now Lot’s daughters oﬀer themselves as a solution to the problem of having no men to marry. In the story below, a daughter-in-law is oﬀering herself (as a trap) to her father-in-law as a solution to the problem of his refusal to comply with the Levirate custom. 3.5. Judah and Tamar (Gen. 38) The main problem for Judah in Gen. 38, as for Lot in Gen. 19: 30–38, is the perpetuation of his family, which would be at risk if the Levirate custom (reasserted in Deut. 5–10) is to be strictly followed. There is no guarantee that Shelah would not follow the step of Onan and if this happens Judah would have lost all his three sons. The progeny concern is appropriately expressed through the use of the Sex motif in the construction of many details of the story, like the mention of Judah “going into” (äéìà àáéå) the daughter of Shua after taking her as wife, or Onan’s spilling his semen on the ground when having sex with Tamar, and ﬁnally Judah’s sexual negotiation with the “harlot” Tamar and the report of Judah “going into” Tamar (vv. 16, 18). Very explicit sex language it is indeed. The kid that Judah wants to send to Tamar

the cross-textual method and the j stories in genesis

439

as the fee for sex gives us the food motif, too. Through Judah’s selfrighteousness and embarrassment, the story seems to mock those who hypocritically moralize against prostitutes. Without a son for her dead husband, Tamar’s life would be a diﬃcult one in Judah’s family. Her deed is therefore not only accepted but praised by her father-in-law who wants to hide his dealing with a harlot. 4. Conclusion I hope I have shown that the J stories we have reviewed are constructed with two motifs corresponding to two universal human problems: food and sex, or survival and progeny. If I go on with other J stories, one observation which could be made is that they too are constructed with our two motifs and with concerns of survival and progeny in mind, and that they almost never touch upon nationalistic theology concerning YHWH’s promises to the fathers. Do we have then two Yahwists, one a Jewish nationalist (e.g. Gen. 15) and the other a Hebrew humanist? And who deserves the name “Yahwist”? I have no certain answers yet at this stage and have to leave the problem for another occasion. But this is a good demonstration that biblical interpretation is an unending quest; one (hopefully) workable proposal leads to more problems and the process goes on and on, and (hopefully) we get a better and more complete picture of the formation and meaning of the Hebrew Bible. The interpretation of the J stories oﬀered here may or may not stand, but it should be pointed out that it has nothing to do with my understanding or misunderstanding of my cultural text, which could be yours if you read it, like it, and enjoy it, just as the Bible is now my text, too. The reading of Mencius’s discussion with Kâo Tsze and Ecclesiastes together has helped me to ask questions like: Who else in the Old Testament would share a similar view? Where can I ﬁnd him? One story immediately crossed my mind, viz. the story of the Garden of Eden, where “eating” and having sex is probably one and the same thing and leaving the comfortable Garden is the unavoidable consequence of eating the forbidden fruit. A gamble was then taken to survey all the Yahwistic material in Genesis. How much I have lost or won I will let others to judge. But I should thank Archie Lee, my former Old Testament teacher, for his cross-textual proposal, which has encouraged me to read Mencius again and re-read Genesis from a new perspective.

RESPONSES TO KABASELE MUKENGE AND CRAIG Y.S. HO

John Barton

Introduction to general discussion The papers read in this session raised in my mind three general questions, which I will summarize brieﬂy. First, in discussing the place of the Bible in the context of world religion and of Christianity in non-western cultures, there is a question about how far the very use of the Bible itself may be perceived as a western or colonialist imposition on other cultures. Craig Ho’s description of Archie Lee’s programme suggests that he (Lee) is partly motivated by the desire to stress that for a Chinese Christian there might be other texts that ought to share in the status of the Bible or at any rate be considered in addition to it—otherwise the question ‘Must Chinese culture just receive; does it not also have something to give?’ would need to be answered in the negative, which is clearly not his intention. Perhaps this might be felt to bear particularly on the Old Testament. One might argue that the New Testament is essential in communicating the gospel, but that the Old Testament is for a Christian essentially praeparatio evangelica, and that for Christians from a diﬀerent cultural context that role could be played by other classic texts, for example by the Chinese classics. (Northern Europeans have not normally argued in an analogous way that for them the preparation of the gospel ought to be Norse or Celtic texts, because they have internalized the Old Testament and in a sense turned it into a western text.) Secondly, other non-western Christians would not argue that the Bible itself is alien, but that the methods by which it has been studied in the West are the product of the European Enlightenment and so are inappropriate in other than a European context. My impression is that this is where the shoes pinches most: there is a sense that European scholars have somehow insisted that non-western Christian should read the Bible with the aid of what is called the historicalcritical method, and that this has blocked a more natural and incul-

442

john barton

turated kind of reading that would actually be more fruitful. Professor Mukenge’s paper shows how the norms of the western academy seem to have prevented African scholars from noticing illuminating parallels within their own culture that may actually be more powerful interpretative tools than those forged in nineteenth-century Europe. It might be worth noting here that a very similar accusation is nowadays often levelled against historical-critical scholarship from within the western academic world: the proponents of a ‘canonical approach’, for example, often argue that biblical criticism has taken the Bible away from ordinary believers in the west just as much as it may be felt to have done so in the rest of the world. Resemblances between the two charges might be worth exploring, as also the possibility that there are diﬀerences between them. Thirdly, there are major themes in the Bible that western criticism is felt to have soft-pedalled or even suppressed, above all those to do with human liberation from tyranny and oppression. It is argued that this theme is so important that it ought to be the major horizon within which the Bible is read, a hermeneutical key which will open up the essential message of Scripture. The Bible is not only a book about liberating, it can also become a liberating book if it is read with attention to what it has to say about freedom and the human dignity of the oppressed. I suppose the question I would ask here is a question of theory. Is it being said that human liberation is indeed the central message of the Bible, one that ought to be recognized whatever method or hermeneutic one brings to the text, or is it meant that we should read the Bible with an eye to human liberation whatever the text may have ‘originally’ been about? The diﬃculty with the ﬁrst approach, as I suggested in my response to Professor Mukenge, is that there are also biblical passages that seem opposed to liberation—Mukenge instanced the oppressive texts, Ezra and Nehemiah. The diﬃculty with the second approach is that it raises the question how we know that a hermeneutic of liberation is the correct hermeneutic: it cannot be simply from the Bible itself, as the process is then circular. This perhaps suggests that a very consciously Protestant liberation theology, which does claim to be derived wholly from the Bible, may be less satisfactory than a Catholic one that can draw on other sources of inspiration. On that basis we would be free to acknowledge that the Bible does not always and everywhere support liberation, but could argue that that does not matter, because we have an external standard by which to judge even the

responses to kabasele mukenge and craig y.s. ho

443

Bible. That, I must say, would be my own preference, but it raises of course the question of the Protestant sola scriptura principle in an acute form.

Response to Kabasele Mukenge. ‘Lectures africaines de la Bible: voies d’approche et perspectives’ This paper provides a very welcome compendium, in a short space, of the various aspects that might be involved in reading the Bible ‘with an African heart’, as the author puts it. It challenges many traditional assumptions of critical method. I should like to tease out several strands in the paper’s thinking, before making a few remarks about its relationship to the so-called ‘historical-critical method’. One way in which an African reading of the Bible can illuminate the text is by providing analogies, either cultural or linguistic, that are closer to the world of the Bible than those often relied on by modern scholars in a western tradition. A good example of a cultural parallel is provided by the story of the two brothers, which is so close in many ways to the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. The story of Cain and Abel has always puzzled readers, since it seems to provide no moral justiﬁcation for God’s preference for Abel over Cain. The African parallel suggests that we may have been looking in the wrong place. Essentially such stories function in a traditional culture as explorations of diﬀerence, and do not apportion praise or blame: they make the point which Professor Mukenge sums up in the proverb from the Ivory Coast, ‘The ﬁngers of the hand are not all the same length’. This insight can help us to read the story of Cain and Abel in a new way. Similarly, there are African languages that exhibit analogies to linguistic features and turns of speech in Hebrew that seem strange to those who know only Indo-European languages. African tradition, culture, and language are thus a rich resource for understanding Hebrew tradition, culture, and language, one of which western scholars are too little aware. As in the opening anecdote, comparisons between Hebrew and African languages are not to be viewed dismissively as a form of ‘missiology’, but can make as real a contribution as the traditional comparisons between Hebrew and Greek, for example. Secondly, ‘reading with an African heart’ can alert us to themes in the Bible which a ‘colonial’ reading has sidelined or ignored. Here the great example is the Bible’s commitment to human liberation.

444

john barton

The African experience, as Mukenge presents it, is predominantly an experience of oppression and exploitation. When read with this in mind, there are many passages in the Bible that suddenly come alive: one thinks of the story of the exodus and the preaching of the prophets. As in other strains of liberation theology, and in a similar way in feminist readings, the Bible can be read as a resource for all that is liberating to the oppressed. Thirdly, however, there are places where the Bible appears to have an ideology of oppression itself, or at least to be written from the point of view of the oppressors, and an example is provided by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Here there is an exclusivist ideology, marginalizing the ‘people of the land’. In such cases an African reading will employ a hermeneutic of suspicion and challenge the text’s bias in favour of the dominant people in society. Fourthly, when read in an African perspective the Old Testament in particular proves to have a stance that aﬃrms the physical world and to avoid other-worldliness: perhaps one might use here the slogan of Christian Aid, ‘We believe in life before death’. An African perspective, so much more rooted in the soil and in the real everyday world than much western theology, can draw inspiration from the Old Testament’s commitment to the physical and the this-worldly. The exegesis of Jeremiah 1:10, ‘to build and to plant’, which reminds us that human society requires both building and planting, is a nice example where a modern African perspective oﬀers insight into a text western readers tend to gloss over without much noticing it. There is a great deal that a desk-bound western biblical scholar can and should learn from these perspectives. There are just two points, however, on which I would seek clariﬁcation. First, does reading with an African heart aﬀect the meaning we ﬁnd in the biblical text, or is it more a matter of how we react to the text once we have established its meaning? It seems to me that many of Mukenge’s points actually contribute, and contribute powerfully, to a rediscovery of what historical-critical scholars would call the original meaning or ‘plain sense’. For example, the cultural and linguistic parallels do not undermine historical-critical approaches but rather suggest new resources on which they should draw, resources which they have neglected in the past through ignorance. It is not a question of a new approach so much as of new sources of information. On such matters there need be no quarrel between historical criticism and an African hermeneutic, rather mutual enrichment.

responses to kabasele mukenge and craig y.s. ho

445

Similarly on the question of liberation: the approach of a liberation theologian seems to be to show us something that was there in the text all along but which we had neglected, and then to go on and draw practical consequences from that for how we should live. It is a matter of being on the look out for certain previously neglected themes and rediscovering that the text really does contain them, not reading against the text’s grain. This is not a theoretically diﬀerent hermeneutic from that used in historical criticism, where similarly one ﬁrst establishes what the text actually means, and then goes on to apply it. In both cases open-mindedness is essential if one is not simply to impute to the text the meaning one would like to ﬁnd in it, and both are in that sense ‘objective’ approaches. But secondly, I would like to ask how one knows when to aﬃrm the meaning the text turns out to have, and when to apply to it a hermeneutic of suspicion. How do we know that the exodus model is normative, while the Ezra-Nehemiah model is ideologically unsatisfactory, and to be resisted? It cannot be because of anything that the Bible itself tells us, since both models are equally biblical. It can only be because we know on other grounds that liberation is better than exclusion and domination. I would personally say that this is knowable from Christian tradition or even from a consideration of human nature, that is, from sources that are not in themselves directly biblical. This is not a criticism of a liberation approach, simply a reminder that it does not proceed from the Bible alone: one could only get it from the Bible by believing in some kind of ‘canon within the canon’. Better, surely, to say that we bring such beliefs to the Bible because we are convinced of them on other grounds. But if we do that then we do not have to treat them as a hermeneutical tool for understanding what the Bible actually says: we are perfectly free to admit that it sometimes says the opposite, but to insist that in such instances it has a limited perspective and needs to be disagreed with, as Mukenge shows it should be in the case of the ideology of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Response to Craig Y.S. Ho, ‘Reﬂection on Some Recent Contributions to Chinese Biblical Interpretation’ This paper raises interesting questions about the contribution that can be made to biblical studies by cross-cultural comparisons. Dr Ho does not argue that a Chinese cultural background oﬀers insights into the

446

john barton

biblical text that could not perhaps in principle be available to western scholars. But he does seek to show that reading the Bible with an awareness of Chinese tradition leads to asking somewhat diﬀerent questions from those that have preoccupied many western scholars. The worked-out example of this is a study of various stories in Genesis usually attributed to J, in the light of the saying, which he tells us is known to all Chinese people, ‘to eat and to mate is human nature’. A traditional Christian reading of the story of the Garden of Eden has interpreted it as the story of the Fall: the way in which sin came into the world and deprived the ﬁrst human beings of immortality, leaving an inheritance of sin and death which they then bequeathed to their descendants, that is, to the whole human race. But if one looks at the story through Chinese eyes, Dr Ho suggests, diﬀerent themes present themselves—themes that turn out to occur in other stories in Genesis too, such as the story of Noah and the story of Lot. These themes are precisely the themes of food and sex, or survival and progeny. By eating the forbidden fruit (which he suggests may be grapes rather than the apple of western tradition!) and becoming aware of their nakedness, that is, of their sexual nature, Adam and Eve change from being happy immortal children into sometimes unhappy mortal grown-ups. To be that is the lot of all humankind, and this story of origins explains how it came about. It is not the account of a fall from grace, but of the transformation—a necessary transformation if human life is to continue—from innocence to knowledge and from immaturity to maturity. As soon as we see that the proverb ‘to eat and to mate is human nature’ can be interpreted positively, not as an adverse judgement on humanity, we also understand better the underlying mentality of the writer J from whom we get the tale of the Garden of Eden. Now Ho is surely right to say that it is not the method but the conclusion that matters in biblical study, and this conclusion could in theory have been arrived at by a careful exegesis of Genesis 2 and 3 even without the Chinese parallel. Nevertheless bringing that parallel in has the salutary eﬀect of unsettling the expectations with which western Christian scholars have tended to approach the text. I think one could say, in fact, that it is not that traditional scholarship has approached Genesis neutrally, whereas Ho’s interpretation reads Genesis in the light of a Chinese text. Rather, western Christian scholars have approached Genesis through their knowledge of the New Testament and of subsequent Christian tradition, especially perhaps the teachings of St Augustine,

responses to kabasele mukenge and craig y.s. ho

447

and have let their reading be unduly inﬂuenced by these other texts. The idea that Adam and Eve lost immortality is found in Romans, in all probability via the Wisdom of Solomon (2:23–24), rather than in the text of Genesis itself, as is the idea that sin entered the world through the sin of Adam (or, as 1 Timothy 2:14 has it, Eve). If we remove these New Testament and apocryphal parallels as counter-texts to Genesis, we see clearly that the text is not originally about ‘the Fall’ at all, but about how human beings became liable to physical labour and pain. (Compare the discussion in James Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality: The Read-Tuckwell Lectures for 1990, London: SCM Press 1992.) Using an alternative counter-text, the Chinese one brought in by Ho, can have the helpful eﬀect of clearing the vision to see that something diﬀerent is going on in the text from what traditional interpretation supposes. I suppose that the ideal of what is called historical criticism is to try to read biblical passages without any counter-text, but this example shows how unlikely that is to succeed in many cases: we are almost bound to approach the biblical text with certain preconceptions, and precisely because they are our own preconceptions it is very diﬃcult to become aware of them and so to make allowance for them. The shock caused by seeing interpretation done by people with quite other preconceptions can remind us that we have preconceptions too. In principle that works both ways, and traditional western critics and more recent eastern ones both need to be brought to an awareness of how far preconception works to blind them to what is really going on in the text. But of course the weight of the past lies much more heavily on the western interpreter, who is heir to generations of interpretation in his or her own tradition, and so it is to western interpreters that challenges most need to be addressed. An approach such as Ho’s is creative in accomplishing this. The paper also raises an even wider issue, through its description of Archie Lee’s ‘cross-textual’ approach. This is the question of whether there should be a canon of texts inherited only from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, which Christians of non-western origin have to receive from Christianity, or whether there ought to be a kind of canon of all the world’s sacred scriptures. I do not quite know what to say about this: it stresses, of course rightly, that (for example) Chinese Christians have much to give as well as much to receive, but it is diﬃcult to see how Christianity could cope with such an enlarged canon. Perhaps it is worth remembering that whereas in the colonial situation it was

448

john barton

undoubtedly true that the Bible was a western cultural artefact being ‘given’ to (or imposed on) non-western peoples, in origin the Bible itself is not exactly a ‘western’ document in any case: certainly the Old Testament is not. One of the good eﬀects of historical criticism is to distance the Old Testament from the western Christian, and to remind him or her that it too comes from a culture which is not western in its attitudes and perspectives. Bible-reading by people from non-western backgrounds can be immensely valuable in reminding all Bible readers that the Bible is not a text the West invented, and that it does not necessarily dance to the West’s tune.

INDEX (Bible and Ancient Literature) Hebrew Bible Genesis 1 1:1–2:3 1:1–2:4 1–3 1–11 1:1 1:2 1:3–5 1:14 1:14–19 2 2–3

2–4 2–11 2–38 2:8 2:15 2:17 2:21 2:23 3:1 3:1–5 3:5, 22 3:6 3:7, 17, 21, 23 3:11 3:16 3:22 3:23

385, 389, 396, 397, 427, 427n.24.25, 428, 431n.39 390 427 419 5n.17, 182, 184, 192, 391 178 427 386 330n.35 383–400, 387, 387n.13, 389 237 236, 237, 430, 431n.38, 432n.41.42, 433, 434 430n.33 184 419 433 433 411, 411n.14, 431 161n.37 236 300n.55, 434 184n.19 181 434 433 431 237, 431n.36 6, 430n.33 434

4 408, 432n.42 4:1 412 4:1–16 407, 408, 410 4:7 410 4:14 408 4:17–22, 23–24 432 4:25 184n.19 5:1–32 388 5:21–24 388 6–9 363n.14, 390, 435–436 6:1–9:29 433–434 6:1–4 184n.19, 433 7:6, 11 389 8:13–14 386n.10, 389 9:3–4 431n.39 9:10 4n.15 9:19 4, 6 9:20, 21, 25 433 9:20–27 433 9:20–29 433 10 4, 12n.30 10:5, 20, 31–32 124 10:5,32 4 10:8–12 11–16 10:10 10 10:18 6 11 4, 6, 10, 12, 16, 17 11:1–8 123n.70 11:1–9 1–11 11:11, 13–16 127 11:27–32 110, 116, 123, 124, 126 11:27–13:18 124 11:27–19:38 118 11:27–25:11 117–120 11:28 127 11:28–30 124, 124n.72

450 11:30 12

index

435 107, 110, 118, 119, 120, 121, 121n.58, 125 12–13 116 12–35 103 12–50 103, 186 12:1 115n.31, 116, 118, 123, 124, 125, 126, 412 12:1–3 110, 119, 124 12:1–4 112, 123, 124 12:6–8 122, 122n.66, 123 12:7 118, 118n.46, 119 12:8 119, 124 12:10 117n.41 12:10–20 121n.58, 122, 435 12:16, 17, 20 122n.65 12:17 122 13:3–4 124 13:10 110n.18 13:2, 5, 7–11 120n.55 13:10 430, 436 13:12 118 13:14–17 116, 118, 124 13 ;15 118n.46 13:17 118n.46 13:18 118n.18 14 127, 127n.83 14:14 127n.83 14:17 118 14:18–20 119 14:20 112, 127n.83 14:21ﬀ 127n.83 15 106, 107, 126, 127, 363n.14, 437 15–17 119 15:1 127n.83 15:2 127n.83 15:2ﬀ 119n.49 15:3–5, 7–8, 18 106n.11 15:6 127 15:6, 7, 18 115 15:7 118n.46, 127 15:7, 8, 18 107 15:12 161n.37

15:18 15:20–21 16

117 115n.32 119n.49, 121, 125n.76, 435 16:1–2, 4–7, 8, 11–12, (15) 121n.59 16:1–4 436 16:1–15 125n.76 16:10 116 16:12 122 17 119n.49, 122, 123, 126, 127, 127n.83, 427n.24 17:1 126 17:2 110 17:5 115 17:6 117n.41 17:8 118, 309, 309n.76 17:16, 18, 20 122n.63 17:17 127 17:18–20 125 17:21 121n.57 18 118 18–19 120, 121, 121n.58 18:1–16, 20–22, 33 120n.55 18:6 112 18:13, 23, 24 300n.55 18:14 121, 121n.57 18:17–19 115n.31, 126 18:22, 23, 25–27 119n.49 18:22–33 126 18:25 3 19 118, 120n.55, 435–436 19:1–29 435 19:3 435 19:30–38 118, 436 20 125, 126 20–22 119, 125 20:1, 6, 7 117n.41 20:1–22:19 119 20:4 125 20:13 125 20:16 117n.41 20:21, 26 116

index 21 21:1, 2, 7 21:1–7 21:2 21:7–9 21:11–13 21:14 21:17 21:19 21:22–34 21:23, 34 21:25 21:31 22

119, 121, 125 121 118, 119, 125n.76 121n.57 125n.76 125n.76 119n.51 ; 125n.77 125n.77 125n.77 85, 119n.51, 125 117n.41 117n.41 3n.10 112, 119, 119n.51, 125 22:2 119 22:2, 16 112 22:3 125n.77 22:11 125n.77 22:13 125n.77 22:14 119n.54 22:15–18 126 22:19 119n.51. 22:20–25:11 120 23 120 23:4, 9, 20 309n.76 24 113, 120, 126 24:2–4, 5, 8 126 24:3 126n.82 24:5–7 126 24:7 116, 118n.46 24:20 126 24:65, 67 120 25:1–6, 8–9 120 25:1–6, 12–18 116 25:5 118 25:7–11 120 25:9 125 26 119, 122 26:2–3 124 26:3 117 26:3–5 113 26:3–5, 24 122n.63, 126 26:11 117n.41 26:15–33 85 28:6, 8 126

451 28:13–14 29:18, 20, 25 30:26 31:3, 13 31:41 31:42 33:20 34:6–7 34:30 35:1–7 38 38:16, 18 40:16 46 46:1–4 46:1–5 47:11 48:4 49:24 49:27 49:30 50:13 50:24

124 305n.69 305n.69 124 305n.69 117n.41 177 180 117n.41 186 436–437 436 300n.55 116, 122 119, 186 124 307n.74 309, 309n.76 61 165n.42 309n.76 309n.76 126

Exodus 63, 414 1–15 285n.11 1:14 305n.69 1:17–21 178 2:23–25 178 3 184 3:4–6, 11–15 178 6:2–8 184 6:3 184 6:8 107n.12 11:1.2–3 122n.65 12:2 392n.20 12:3 390n.18 12:32–33, 35, 36 122n.65 12:37–42 390 13 322n.108 13:4 392n.20 13:10 398n ;34 13:17–19 184 15:1–18 162 15:4, 6, 8, 10, 17 63

452 15:17 17 17:13 19:3, 17, 19 20–23 20:1, 19–21 20:2 20:8–11

index

64 156 162 184 186 184 127 427, 427n.25, 428n.26 20:24 281n.1, 291n.36 21:2 285, 286n.14.16, 187n.16, 293, 293n.40, 294n.42, 295n.43, 301, 315, 315n.96 21:2–6 304, 306, 316n.97 21:2–7 295n.43, 296 21:2–6, 7–11 281, 295, 297, 301, 301n.58, 306n.70, 307 21:3–4 283n.6 21:5 308 21:6 303, 304, 305, 308, 313n.86 21:6, 13 187 21:7 296, 298, 301 21:12–23:9,10–11 321 21:22 287n.16 22:2 296 22:7–8 187 23:12 428n.26 23:14–17 393 23:15 393n.22 24 73 24:7–8 72, 196n.5 24:11–13 184 24:12 196n.5 24:13 156 25: 9, 40 196 31:14 428 31:18 196n.5 32:16 185n.21, 206 32:32–33 198, 198n.13 33:11 156 34:1 196n.5

34:14 34:18 34:18–23 34:28 35–40 40:1, 17 40:38

180 392n.20 393 196n.5 398 389 393

Leviticus 11 431n.39 14:34 307n.74 19:17 317n.100 19:5, 23, 33 318n.104 20:9 318n.104 22:29 318n.104 23 390, 391–394 23:4–11 391 23:5, 24, 27, 34–39 392 23:10 318n.104 23:11, 15, 34, 36 394 23:24–25 390 23:34, 39 384 25 283, 286, 288, 289, 290, 306, 315, 315n.94, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322, 323, 323n.109 25:1–7, 8–24, 25–54 319, 321 25:2 318n.104 25:13 320 25:13, 24, 25, 28, 33 309n.77 25:14, 20, 25, 35, 39, 47 318n.104 25:25, 35, 36, 39, 47 317n.100 25:34 309n.76, 315n.94 25:34, 46 309, 310, 311, 313n.86 25:38 127 25:39 286, 286n.16, 300n.55, 317

index 25:39–43

316n.97, 320, 320n.107 25:39–44 282 25:39–46 285, 291, 296, 305, 305n.69 25:40 306, 316 25:41 309n.76 25:42 305n.68, 316, 319 25:44 315, 315n.96 25:44–46 306, 306n.70, 307, 308 25:45, 46 309n.74 25:46 312, 312n.84, 319 25:47–54 320 26:16, 24, 28, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44 300n.55 27:24 309n.76 Numbers 1:1–10:10 393 6:3 156 6:3–4 434 9:1–5 389 9:2 398n.34 10:11 389, 393 11:28 156 11:16, 17 157 13–14 170 13:16 156 14:6, 30, 38 156 16:14 300n.55 21:5 185 21:24 162 21:27 50n.8 21:35 162 22–24 185 23:19 192n.36 24:17 207 27:4 309n.74 27:7 309n.76 27:15–16, 18–23 161 27:18 157 27:18–23 156 27:21 156, 164 28:11 389 28:16–29:39 390

453 32 169, 170, 171n.61 32:1 169n.53 32:1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 16, 17, 20, 24, 33, 34–38 170n.54 32:5, 22, 29 309n.74 32:6ﬀ 172 32:7–15 170n.56 32:32 309n.76 32:40 165 33 390 33:38 390 34 171n.61 35:8 309n.76

Deuteronomy 2–3 170 2:11, 20 300n.55 2:24 170 2:24, 30, 32–33 162 2:29, 30 170 3:2–3 162 3:18 169, 169n.52, 170 3:19 169n.53 4:13 196n.5 4:27 4, 6 5–10 436 5:6 179 5:9 180 5:10 112 5:12–15 428 5:14 428 5:22 196n.5 6:5 112 6:5, 17 169 6:14 180 6:20–23 215 7:4 180 7:9 112 10:12 169 11:1, 22 169 11:13 169 12 180, 289, 291 12:20, 21, 29 318n.103 12–26 289 13:2, 7, 13 318n.103 13:17 50

454

index

14:23 161 14:24 318n.103 15 318n.105, 320 15:1 302n.61 15:1–11 320 15:1, 12–18 321 15:2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 12 317n.99 15:7, 12, 13, 16, 21 318n.103 15:12 286, 286n.16, 287n.16, 299, 300n.58, 301, 302, 302n.60.61, 305, 307, 317 15:12–18 282, 283n.6, 285, 298, 303, 304, 304n.65, 316, 316n.97, 319, 320 15:15 305n.68 15:17 296, 299, 299n.54, 300n.55.58, 301, 301n.58, 302, 303n.62, 304, 305n.68, 307, 308n.72 15:19 305n.69, 318n.105 16:1 392n.20, 393 16:1–17 393 17:2, 8 318n.105 17:2, 8, 14 318n.103 17:15 295n.43, 317n.99 17:20 317n.99 18:2, 15, 18 317n.99 18:6, 9, 21 318n.103 19:1, 11, 16 318n.103 19:18, 19 317n.99 20:1, 10, 19 318n.103 20:8 317n.99 21:1 318n.105 21:1, 10, 15, 18, 22 318n.103 21:3 306n.69 22:1–4 317n.99 22:6, 22 318n.105 22:6, 8, 13, 22, 23, 28 318n.103

23:3 436 23:10, 11, 22, 23, 25, 26 318n.103 23:16 304n.65 23:20, 21 317n.99 23:22 346 24:1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 19, 20, 21 318n.103 24:5 295n.43 24:7 318n.105 24:7, 15 317n.99 25:3 317n.99 25:5, 11 318n.103 25:16 162 26:5–9 215 26:12 318n.103 26:17 179 27 158, 163 27:2, 3, 4, 5–7, 8 163 28:64 4, 6 30,3 4, 6 30:6 169 30:15 431 30:16, 20 169 32:20 160n.36 31:9–13, 25–26 204 31:7, 8 156, 161 31:27 300n.55 32:49 309n.74 33:3, 20, 28 300n.55 34:4 126 34:9 157, 161 Joshua 1 157 1:1 156 1:2 170 1:2–9 161 1:7, 8 158, 169 1:12–15 169, 169n.52 1:12–15, 16–18 168 1:14 169 2 156 2–9 153n.3

index 3 3–4 3:10 4 5:2–9 5:13ﬀ 6 6:8, 10 6:26 7:11, 15 8 8:30, 31, 32 8:30–35

156 154n.9, 157 180 156 162 154n.9 154n.9 155 50n.8, 51, 156, 157 163 172 163 154n.9, 156, 158, 163 8:34–35 164 9 162, 164 9:7, 14, 27 164 9:24 154n.9 10 154 10:1–15, 16–27 164 10:8 157 10:11–15 153 10:12–14 164 10:28–43 164 11 164, 167 11:1–22 164 11:23 156 12 156 13:8–19:49 156 14:8 169n.50 16:1–3 124 17 154 17:4 169n.50 17:14–18 153, 156 18:12–13 124 21:41 309n.76 22 154n.9, 172 22:1–6, 7, 8 169 22:1–6, 7, 8,9–34 172 22:1–8, 9–34 171 22:5 169 22:6 165 22:7ﬀ 168 22:19 171, 309 23 161, 165

455 23:1 24

168 114, 115n.36, 116n.39, 117, 154, 161, 165, 215, 219–222 24:2 156 24:2, 3, 5, 14 116 24:3 116n.38 24:11, 12, 13 116n.36 24:14–15 156 24:29–30 156 24:30 154 24:32 126

Judges 1 – 1 Kgs 11 182 1:3, 17 169n.50 1:7 183 1:15–17 86, 94 2 182 2:7–9 156 3:9 166 3:20 183 5:29 300n.55 6–9 182 6:36–40 182 7:14 183 8:31 182 9:7, 23, 56–57 183 9:46 177 11 182 13–16 182 13:6, 9 183n.18 17–21 182 1 Samuel 2:7 300n.55 10:1 62 12 215, 219–221 12:12, 19 220 14:30 300n.55 15:5 86 17:4 166 20:5, 18, 29, 34 384n.3 21:6 300n.55

456

index

23:3

300n.55

2 Samuel 2:1–4 4:11 5:1–5 7:10–11 7:12–16 12 14:17 15:7, 9 16:11 20:14

120n.56 300n.55 120n.56 64 59 430n.33 430n.33 120n.56 300n.55 300n.55

1–2 Kings

77–78

1 Kings 5:31 (=3R 6:1c) 51 8:27 300n.55 11:29–39 146 11:41 142 12:15 146, 190 12:32–33 384 14:7–11, 14–17 147 15:23 143 15:29–30 146 16:1–4 146 16:11–13 146 16:24 145 16:34 51, 156, 157 17–19 148 18:24 181 18:38 163 20 150n.38 21:1 143 21:21–24 146 22 73, 139, 147, 148 22:1–37, 40, 43–44, 45 139 22:43, 45 149 2Kings 1 1–25 2:14

148 73 70, 300n.55

3 139, 147, 148 5:13 300n.55 5:18–19 426n.21 8:18, 26 148 9–10 146 9:7–10, 36–37 146 9:15, 30–33 143 9:25–26, 36–37 146 10:10, 17 146 10:32 145 11:18 149 13:3, 22, 24–25 145 13:12 143 14:15, 28 143 14:22 139 14:25 145 15:19–20, 29 145 17:3–6 145 18:17–19:9, 36–37 149 20:20 143 22:15–20 146 22:20 68, 71n.9, 74, 75, 76, 77 22:39 143 23:1–3 65–79 23:21–23 152 25:22–30 152 Isaiah 1:2 1:13 1:13–14 4:2 4:2–3 5:1 8:16 10:12 10:13 12:1 12:3 14:3 14:13 14:32

114 389 384n.3 60 200, 200n.18 235, 241 204 51 16n.51 110n.19 110n.19 306n.69 177, 187 51

index 25:2 26:8, 9, 11 28:16 29:22 30:28 30:29 33:2 33:21 35:2 35:10 38:10 40:1 40:24 40–55 41 41:1–7, 14–16 41:8 41:8–9 41:8–13 41:9 41:10, 23, 26 42:1–4 42:5 42:13 43:7, 19 43:10–13 43:28 44:9–10 44:15–16, 19 44:26 44:28 45:18 45:21 45:21–22 46:1–7, 8–11 46:7, 11 48:1 48:12, 13, 15 48:13 49:13 51 51:1 51:1–8 51:2 51:3, 11

50n.8 300n.55 61 103 15n.45 109n.15 300n.55 109n.15 300n.55 110n.19 374n.23 110n.19 300n.55 110 113 111n.20 103 124 111 110n.18 300n.55 110n.19 188 300n.55 300n.55 188 49 181 300n.55 50n.8 49 188 300n.55 188 188 300n.55 112n.23 300n.55 51 108n.14, 110n.19 113, 118, 121, 124 112, 228 107–111 103, 110n.19, 111, 113 110n.19

457 51:9–11 51:13, 16 52:9 54:1–3 55:1 58:13 58:14 61:3 63:7–64:11 63:9 63:11–14 63:16 63:17 64:4, 6 64:6 64:7, 9 65:6 65:17 66:13 66:22

109n.17 51 108n.14, 110n.19 110n.19 345n.127 341 113 110n.19 113 114 113 103, 113 114n.28 114n.28 114 113 198n.11 397n.29 110n.19 397n.29

Jeremiah 1:10 2:1 5:6 12:7 22:13 23:5 25:11–14, 25:14 27:7 51(28):26 30:8 33:15 33:21, 22, 26 33:26 34 34:9–10 34:14 34:8–22 31(38):3

414n.24 235 165n.42 63 306n.69 58, 60 208 306n.69 306n.9 61 306n.9 60 58 103 283, 290, 292n.38 306n.69 302n.61 282, 292 241n.28

Ezekiel 1:1 1:1, 2 3:16 8:1

395n.25 396n.26 396n.26 395, 396n.26

458 9 11:14–16 13:9 14:21 15:5 16 16:7 17:10 18 20 20:1 20:8, 13 20:27–28, 42 22 23 23:40 24:1 24:21 26:1 28:2 28:13 28:25 29:1, 17 29:20 30:20 31,1 31:8–9 32:1, 17 33 33:21 33:23–29 34:23, 24 33:24

208 105 198n.12, 200 300n.55 300n.55 224, 235 59 59 105n.7 106, 215, 224 396n.26 224 105n.8 105n.7 224, 235 300n.55 396n.26 104n.2 396n ;26 177, 187 110n.18 105n.8 396n.26 305n.69 396n.26 396n.26 110n.18 396n.26 107 396n.26 104, 105, 107 58 103, 104, 106n.11, 118, 121, 123 34:27 306n.69 37:24 58 37:25 105 40–48 395n.25, 397 40:1 395, 396n.26 44:28 309n.74 45:5, 8 309n.74 45:6, 7 309n.76 46:11 385 47 109n.15 47:13–48:29 171 47:14 105n.8 48:20, 21, 22 309n.76

index 48:35

397n.30

Hosea 1:6–2:5 23n.21 2 180 2:1–5, 14–19, 22–25 25n.27 2:6 50n.9 2:13 384 2:13–15 23n.17 2:15 180 2:16–17 235 3:1 180 3:1–5 25n.27 3:2–4 23n.17 3:4 39 3:5 37 4:1–5:1 23n.17 4:1 38 4:1, 10–11, 13–14 25n.27 5:10 38 6:3 41 6:3–4, 8–11 25n.27 6:6 40 7:1, 13–16 25n.27 7:11 13 8:1 25n.27 8:14 49 9:1–4, 9–17 25n.27 10:1–14 25n.27 10:12 28n.39, 38, 41 11:2–11 25n.27 11:4 241n.28 11:9 181, 192 12:1–15 25n.27 12:13(12) 395n.69 13:1, 6–8, 11–13 25n.27 13:3–10 23n.17 13:4 23, 180 13:15–14:6 23n.17 14:9–10 25n.27 Joel 1:10–2:1 1:12–14

23n.17 25n.27

index 1:19–2:11 41 2:8–23 23n.17 2:12–13 25n.27 2:20 26n.34 2:23 41 2:26–4:16 26n.34 4:4–9, 11–14, 17, 19–20 25n.27 4:6–21 23n.17 Amos 414 1:3–5 25 1:3–15 25n.27 1:5–2:1 26n.34 2:1, 7–9, 15–16 25n.27 2:11 300n.55 2:11–4:2 23n.17 3:1–2 25n.27 3:15 143 4:4–9 25n.27 5 37 5:1–2, 8–18 25n.17 5:26 38 6:1–4, 6–14 25n. 27 6:13–7:16 23n.17 7:1, 7–12, 14–17 25n.27 7:3–4 27n.36 7:3–8:7 26n.34 8:1–5, 11–14 25n.27 8:4–6 384n.3 8:5 389 8:11–9:15 26n.34 9 37 9:1, 6, 14–15 25n.27 9:6–7 27n.36 9:11 38, 42, 50n.9 9:14 50n.8 Obadiah 1–5, 8–12, 14–15 25n.27 1–21 26n.34 Jonah 1:1–3:2

190 26n.34

459 1:1–9 25n.27 1:1–5, 7–8, 9–10 21n.10 1:6–8, 10–16 24n.26 1:14 345n.127 1:16–2:1 21n.10 2:3–11 25n.27 2:7 21n.10 3:1–3 25n.27 3:2 21n.10 3:2–4:11 26n.34 4 363n.14 4:5–11 25n.27

Micah 1:1–5 1:5–3:4 1:7, 12–15 2–3 2:3–4 2:12 3:4–4:12 3:12 4:1–2 4:12–6:7 5:1–2 5:6–7 6:8 6:11–7:17 7:2–3, 20 7:8–20 7:11 7:17–20 7:20

26n.34 26n.34 25n.27 37 25n.27 38 26n.34 25n.27 25n.27 26n.34 24n.26 25n.27 40 26n.34 25n.27 38 38 26n.34 103

Nahum 1:1–2:12 1:5 1:7–9 2:7 2:9–11 2:12, 13 2:13–3:19 3:1–3, 17 3:5 3:6–7 3:6, 8

26n.34 28 25n.27 49 25n.27 28 26n.34 25n.27 30 30 28

460

index

Habakkuk 1:3–2:11 1:4 1:13 2:1 2:4 2:5, 15 2:18–3:19 3 3:3 3:10

26n.34 31 29 38 25n.27 300n.55 26n.34 31n.49 58n.27 27

Zephaniah 1:1 1:1, 12, 14 1:1–2 1:11–3:6 2:2, 23 2:3 2:13–15 2:15–3:2 3:3–5 3:17 3:8–20 3:19–20

26n.34 57 22n.15 26n.34 57 40 22n.15 23n.17 25n.27 241n.28 26n.34 22n.15

Haggai 50, 51, 53, 54, 55 1:1–2 22n.15 1:1–11 26n.34 1:1, 12, 14 57 1:4, 9 50 1:12–2:10 26n.34 1:14 55 2:2–4 22n.15 2:2, 23 57 2:3, 9 50 2:4, 21, 23 57 2:9(10), 15(16), 18(19) 48 2:13–14 27n.36 2:13–23 26n.34 2:18 51, 53 2:18–21 24n.24 Zechariah 1–8

53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 63 64

1:1–4 26n.34 1:4–6, 9–10, 13–14 24n.24 1:16 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 56 2:10–14 24n.24 2:14 48 2:16 171 3:1–10 56n.18 3:2–10 24n.24 3:7 212 3:8 56, 57, 58, 60 4:1–4 24n.24 4:6 62, 63 4:6, 7, 9, 10 56 4:7 60, 61, 62, 63, 64 4:8 52 4:8–9 46, 60 4:8–10 56 4:9 48, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 4:10 58, 62 4:14 42 5:4 48 5:8–11 24n.24 6 37 6:1–5 24n.24 6:8 38 6:9–15 56n.18 6:10 48 6:12 58, 59, 60 6:12, 13 56, 58 6:12, 15 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 54 6:13 46n.2 7:9 47 8:2–4, 6–7 24n.24 8:3 48 8:9 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 60, 63, 64 8:12 60 8:13, 15, 19 48 8:21 60 10:4 61 10:11–12 25n.27 11 37 11:1–2 25n.27

index 12:1 12:1–3 12:7–12 13 14:18

51 25n.27 24n.24 37 21n.10

Malachi 1 2:10–14 2:15–3:24 3 3:6 3:6–7 3:16–18 3:23–24

37 21n.10 21n.10 37 207 23n.17 39, 199 41

Psalms 9:14 14 16:6, 7, 9 18:3 18:49 19:1 24(23):2 27 38:4–6 38:23 42–83 44:10 46:5 47:10 49 50:1 51 53 56:9 57:7 58:3 61:3.5 65:14 68:9, 17, 19 69:29 73 74(73):2 73:17 74 74:8

374n ;23 189n.29 300n.55 180 300n.55 187 51 109n.15 21n.9 329n.24 188, 189 300n.55 109n.15 103 189, 189n.31 187 189 189n.29 198n.11 329n.24 30àn.55 109n.15 300n.55 300n.55 199n.15 189, 189n.31 63 181 189 181

461 74:12–17 427 74:16 300n.55 78(77):9 51 77:17, 18 300n.55 77:18 27 79 189 81:10 180 82 433 82:1 187 84:8 119 87:4–6 200n.17 87:7 109n.15 89:2 329n.24 89(88):4, 21, 40 58 89:6, 12, 22, 28, 44 300n.55 89:11–13 427 89(88):12 51 90–150 189 93:1 300n.55 96:10 300n.55 102(101):26 51 104(103):5 51 104:19 398n.34 105 103, 114, 116, 117, 221–224 105:6, 11 117n.44 105:8, 11, 42 117 105:8–11, 42–45 222 105:8, 44–46, 47 223 105:12–15 116, 117n.41 105:42 117n.42 106 215, 221–224 106:6 222 107:18 374n.23 108:2 300n.55 114:2, 8 329n.24 115:3 345 118(117):22 61 119:3 300n.55 132:10 58 135:17 300n.55 139:16 198n.11, 199 148 22n.12

462 150

index 22n.12

Job 190 4:19 300n.55 6:27 300n.55 9:14 300n.55 12:9 191 14:3 300n.55 15:4 300n.55 17:13 374n.23 19:4 300n.55 25:6 300n.55 28 355–380 28:1–11 361–364 28:1–28 364–365 28:12–14, 15–19, 20–22, 23–28 361 32:10, 17 300n.55 34:12, 17 300n.55 35:14 300n.55 36:16, 29 300n.55 37:1, 11 300n.55 38 355–380, 365–367, 372–378 38:1–42:6 190 38:4, 16 51 40:8 300n.55 42:2 5n.16 Proverbs 1:6 5:15 7:18 9:2 11:31 15:11 17:7 19:7, 10 20:25 21:27 22:19 23:28 23:31–32 30:16 31:13

248 431n.36 241n.27 300n.55 300n.55 300n.55 300n.55 300n.55 347 300n.55 300n.55 300n.55 434 241n.27 341

Song of Songs / Canticles 235–253 1:9, 15 252n.64 1:12 239 1:16 300n.55 2:2, 10, 13 252n.64 2:4, 5, 7 241n.29 2:7 251, 251n.61.62 2:8 250 2:15 239 3:1–2 349n.153 3:5, 10 241 4:1, 7 252n.64 4:8, 9, 10, 11, 12 252n.64 4:9, 10 252n.64 4:12–15 431n.36 4:13 241n.30 5:1, 2 252n.64 5:2 239 5:4 241 5:6 349n.153 5:8 241n.29 5:16 252 6:4 252n.64 6:11 251, 251n.61.62 7 253 7:5–6 253 7:6 241n.29 7:8–9 240 8:1 252 8:4, 6, 7 241n.29 8:5 244 8:6 236, 249 8:11–12 241n.26 Qohelet/Ecclesiastes 190, 191 1:3 348n.144 1:12–18 327 1:13 326, 327n.15, 331, 331n.42, 332, 333n.53, 336, 336n.68, 337, 339, 340, 351 1:13–18 348

index 1:14

334n.58, 335n.68, 339, 349n.153 1:14–15 333 1:15 331, 339, 351n.163 1:16–17 328, 329n.24, 330, 337 1:17 326n.15, 328, 329, 329n.24, 330n.33, 336, 340, 348, 349n.153 1:18 329n.24 2:1–11 327, 347 2:3 331n.39 2:3, 13, 24 334n.58 2:9 300n.55 2:10–11 348, 348n.144 2:12 329n.25, 330 2:14ﬀ 346 2:15 352n.167 2:17 335n.68 2:18–24 348n.144 2:21–23 348 2:23 333 n.55 2:23, 26 331n.42 2:24–26 347, 348 2:26 329n.26, 331, 333n.53 3:1, 17 342, 342n.107, 343, 344, 345 3:1–8, 11, 14, 17 339 3:1–9 343 3:6, 15 327n.16 3:9 348n.144 3:10 331, 331n.42, 332, 333, 333n.53, 336, 340, 343 3:10, 16, 22 334n.58 3:11 332, 332n.48, 333, 335, 335n.67, 336, 337, 339, 340, 343, 352n.167 3:11–17 327 3:12–13 348 3:13 348n.144 3:14–15 333

463 3:16 344n.115 3:16, 17, 18–21 344 3:17 343 3:22 337, 348 4:1 345 4:1, 4, 7, 15 334n.58 4:2 350 4:3 335n.68 4:4, 8, 9 348n.144 4:6 348n.144 4:8 331n.42 4:8–12 327 4:17 329n.23 4:17–5:6 346 5:2 333n.55 5:2, 13 331n.42 5:3 345, 346 5:3, 7 342 5:3–8 327 5:5 347 5:7 342, 342n.107, 343, 344, 345 5:12, 17 334n.58 5:14, 17, 18 348n.144 5:15 348n.144 5:17–19 348 6:1 334n.58 6:7 348n.144 6:12 337 7:8 352n.169 7:13 334n.67, 339, 351n.163 7:13–18, 23–29 327 7:14 337, 337n.75 7:15 334n.58 7:23 331n.39, 334, 335n.62 7:23–24 335n.67, 337–338, 339 7:23–29 328 7:23–8:1 328, 337, 339 7:25 330, 330n.33.35, 336 7:25, 28, 29 327n.16 7:25–29 338, 338n.80, 349

464 7:26 337n.77 7:26, 28 349n.153 7:26, 29 352n.167 7:26, 27, 29 339 7:26, 27–28, 29 338n.81 7:27 334 7:28, 29 340 8:1 338, 339, 352, 352n.169 8:2–4 345n. 127 8:3 342, 342n.103 8:5, 6, 7 345 8:5, 6, 17 351 8:6 342, 342n.107, 343, 345 8:7 337 8:9 350 8:9, 16 327n.15 8:9, 17 335n.68, 340 8:9, 10, 17 334n.58 8:10–17 327, 349n.153 8:14 344n.115 8:15 348 8:15, 17 348n.144 8:16 331n.42, 333, 336, 340 8:16–17 328, 331, 334, 334– 335n.59.62.67, 336, 339, 349 8:17 327n.16, 330, 335, 335n.67, 337, 339, 340, 352n.167 9:1 336, 345 9:7–9, 10 348 9:9 348n.144 9:11 350 9:11, 13 334n.58 9:15 331n.39 10:5, 7 334n.58 10:15 348n.144 11:5 335n.67, 339 11:8–9 348 12:1 342, 345, 347, 348 12:7 348 12:9 325, 327, 351, 353

index 12:9–11 12:9–14 12:10 12:11

327, 348–349 326 325–353 352n.167

Lamentations 1:10 2:7, 20 2:12 2:17 3:7, 9

49 49 13 51 50n.9

Esther 5:12

300n.55

Daniel 197 1–6 225, 226 2 225, 227–228 6:18(19) 49 7 201 7–12 212, 225 7:10 197 8 229 8:5–7, 8 229 8–12 209n.43 8:16–17 208 8:25 230 9:2–3, 20–21, 23–27 208 9:4–19 401 9:17 49 9:22 208 9:23, 25 209 9:27 385 10–12 198 10:1 209 10:21 198, 208 11 229–230 11:26, 29, 30–39 231 11:33–35 209 12:1 199 12:3 212 12:3, 10 209 Ezra

57, 189, 190, 415, 416

index 1–3 2 4:2–3 6:15 6:16–18 6:21 7 7:9 8:32 9:2 10:11

190 200 417 396 416 417 396 395 395 416 417

57, 189, 190, 415, 416 1:1 396 1:6 416 2:1 396 2:7 416 2:18 300n.55 2:20 417 5 314 6:14 417 6:15 396 7 200 8:2 395 9 114, 115, 116n.36, 117, 215 9:7 115n.31 9:7–8, 15, 23, 24–25, 26–28, 29–30 115n.30 9:8, 22, 24, 25 116n.36 9:18 300n.55 13:3 416, 417 13:15 300n.55

Nehemiah

1 Chronicles 8:32 9:27 9:38 16:13 16:30 28:11–12, 19 29:4

189 300n.55 49 300n.55 117 300n.55 196 49

2 Chronicles 3:1

189 119n.54, 125n.78

465 3:17 6:18 8:16 10:15 12:5 20:7 20:8 24:4, 13 26:18 30:8 32:15 32:31 34:28 34:29–32

57 300n.55 51 190 300n.55 112n.26 49 54 49 49 300n.55 125n.78 68 65–79

Apocrypha Judith

215

Tobit 14

22n.12

1 Maccabees

49

2Maccabees

49

Wisdom 2:23 2:23–24

431n.38 445

Sirach / Ben Sira 10:26 18:22 36 36:10 46:1 49:10 50:1

341 347 22n.12 64 157 33 n.56 50n.10

Baruch 1 :5–3:8

401

1 Esdras 1:39 2:14 3:1–5:3

49, 50, 53 48n.4 48n.5 57

466 4:13 4:45 4:55 5:5, 47, 54 5:53–54 5:54–55 5:55 6:1–2 6:2 6:4, 13, 27 6:14 6:19 7:3 7:5 2Esdras 3:2, 8, 17 3:6, 10 4:1 5:1–2 5:14 5:14, 15 5:16 6:5 6:14 6:15

index 50 48n.5 51 57 48n.5 53 51 45 57 51 50 51, 53 45 51, 55 53 57 48, 51, 53 48 45 48n.4 48 53 48n.5 45 51, 55

New Testament Matthew 5:17, 21–48 23:35

323 409

Mark 2:27

428

Luke 10:20 11:51

200n.19 409

2Corinthians 3:6

244

Philippians 4:3

200n.19

1 Timothy 2:14

445

2Timothy 3:16

248

Hebrews 11:4 12:23 12:24

409 200n.19 409

1 John 3:12

409

Revelation 3:5 13:8 17:8 20:12, 15 21:27

414 200n.19 200n.19 200n.19 200n.19 200n.19

Pseudepigrapha 195, 197, 201n.20, 202, 206, 400n.39 1:1–3, 4, 26–29 203 1:4, 26–29 204 3:10, 31 202n.26 4:17 210, 388 4:21 210 4:32 202n.26 5:13, 17–18 202n.26 5:13–15 205 6:17, 29, 31, 35 202n.26 6:23, 29 384 6:29–31 385 6:32–38 388 6:35 204 10:9–14 211 12:27 211 15:25 202n.26 16:3 199 16:3, 9 203

Jubilees

index 16:3, 28, 29 202n.26 18:19 202n.26 19:9 202, 202n.26.27 23:32 202n.26, 203 24:33 202n.26, 203 28:6 202n.26 30:9 205 30:9, 19, 20, 22 202n.26 30:18–22 202n.27 30:18–20, 22 202 31:32 202n.26 32:10, 15, 21, 28 202n.26 32:20–26 203, 211 33:10 202n.26 33:10–12 205 36:10 199n.15, 203 39:6 202 45:16 211 49:7–8 388 49:8 202n.26 50:13 202n.26, 205 1 Hénoch

197, 200, 201n.20, 202, 215, 231 2:1 400n.39 5:4 400n.39 12:3–4 210 15:1 210 47:3 200n.19, 201 65:3 400n.39 81:1–4 201 81:4 201 85–90 201 89:59–77 201, 208 90:14, 22 208 90:20 201 93:1–2 201n.22, 202 93:2 210n.47 98:7–8 201 103:1 201n.22 103:1–4 202 104:1 200n.19 104:7 201 106:19 202 106:19–107:1 201n.22

467 108:7

201n.22, 202

Joseph and Aseneth 15:3 200n.19 Syriac Baruch

215, 231

Testaments of the XII Patriarchs TLevy. 5:4 202n.23 TAsher 7:5 202n.23 Damascus Document 37, 42 CD 1:1–2:1 38 CD 1:7 62 CD 2:14–4:12a 38 CD 5:1–5 204 CD 6:10–11 28n.39 CD 6:11b-8:21 38 CD 6:14–17 38 CD 6:18–19 384n.2 CD 13:12 205 CD 14:3–6 205 CD 14:12 341 CD 19:15–18 39 CD 19:33b-20:34 39 CD 20:17–21 199n.16, 206 Dead Sea Scrolls Qumran 1QH 1:23–24

206, 206n.36 1QH 11:6–8 384n.2 1QHa 16:16 41 1QM 12:1–3 206 1QpHab 29, 30, 31n.49 1QpHab 1:12–14, 14–16 31 1QpHab 6:12–7:5 38

468 1QpHab 7:13–14 206n.39 1QS 1:14–15 384n.2 1QS 3:17 341 1QS 5:8 40 1QS 9:4–5 40 1QS 9:13–14 206n.38 1QS 10:5 384n.2 1QS 10 i 6–8 206 4QAgesCreat 206 4QApJacob(4Q537 i 3–5) 203n.28 4Qﬂor I:1–13 64 4Qﬂor I, ii 60 4QInstruction 210 4QInstruction (4Q417) 1 i 15–16 35 4QpHosa 29, 32 4QpNah 28–29 4QpNah 1–2 ii 9 28 4QpNah 3–4 i 4 28 4QpNah 3–4 ii 10–11 30 4QpNah 3–4 iii 1–5 30 4QpNah 3–4 iii 10 28 4QPsa (4Q83) 21n.9, 32 4QSb 40 4QSd 40 4QXIIa (4Q76) 21, 22, 24, 34 4QXIIb (4Q77) 22, 32, 33 4QXIIc (4Q78) 23, 32, 34 4QXIIc frag. 35 21 4QXIIc frag. 38 21n.9

index 4QXIId (4Q79) 23, 32, 34 4QXIIe (4Q80) 24, 32, 34 4QXIIf (4Q81) 24 4QXIIf frag. 5 21, 32, 34 4QXIIg (4Q82) 25, 28n.39, 32, 33 4Q174 40, 42 4Q175 157 4Q177 40 4Q180 i 3 206n.37 4Q204 5 ii 26–27 201n.22 4Q216 I 11, IV 4 204 4Q252 386n.10, 389, 391 4Q253a 36 4Q254 4 2 42 4Q298 40 4Q379 157 4Q400–407 212 4Q417 1 i 14–16 207, 207n.41 4Q417 1 i 16 199n.16 4Q504 vi 14 199n.15 4Q521 2 iii 2 41 4Q522 157, 167 4Q522 9 ii 6 158n.29 4Q522 9 ii 10 159n.30 4Q525 frag.15, 21, 22 41 4Q558 41 5QXII (5Q4) 25, 32, 34 Nahal Hever . 8HevXIIgr 21, 26, 28, 29, 32, . 34 Murabba#at Mur88

26, 28, 29, 32

index Ancient Literature Atrahasis

373

The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk CT 13 36: 17–18 377 Enki’s journey to Nippur 21–22 373n.20 Flood Story (BE 39099) 373 Enuma Elish 1:5–6 369 IV:41–50, 143–146 369n.18 IV:135–146 369, 369n.17 V:1–6 370 V:12–20 384n.4 V:65–68 376 V:68 369

469

Flavius Josephus Antiquities of the Jews III 49, 51, 59 156 IV 165, 311 157n.24 V 1, 17, 22, 35, 45–48, 60, 117 157 V 20 157n.24 V 100, 112 172 V 118 156 IX 283, 287 132 XIV 158, 180, 280 157 Contra Apionem I 107, 112, 116 132 I 121–123 136–137 Philo Legum Allegoriae II, 10 59

KAH 127 VI

373n.20

KAR 307 30–38

370, 371

Pseudo-Philo Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum XXII 1, 7 172 XXII 5, 6 158

AO 8196 IV:20–22

370, 371

Rabbinic Literature

Mul-Apin I I i-ii 35

376n.25

Myth of P"an-ku 425 Kâo Tsze

419, 429, 429n.27, 437

Mencius

419, 422, 429n.27

Talmud B. Shabbat 113a 341 Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a 399n.37 Mo#ed Qa.tan 9b 341 Qiddushin 22b 315n.95 Tanhuma Toledot 6

62n.49

470

index

Pesiqta de-Rab Kahana 4:10 29 25:1 29 Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael 3.3 294n.41 Canticle Rabbah 7c 341 Samaritan Literature Joshua 158–173 Samaritan Chronicle 158–173

Homélies sur le Cantique SC 37bis, p. 71 247, 247n.48 Commentaire sur le Cantique III, 11–12 250n.56 IV, 3, 8–10 239n.18 Philon de Carpasia PG 87/2, col. 1589–93 251n.62 Commentaire sur le Cantique PG 40, col. 100B: 125 239 n.19

Church Fathers Didyme SC 83

62n.49

Procope de Gaza PG 87/2, col. 1545–53 250n.57

Grégoire de Nysse Homélies sur le Cantique Prologue 248, 248n.52

Théodore de Mopsueste PG 66, col. 529 62n.49

Hippolyte Sur le Cantique des Cantiques CSCO 264, p. 35: 12:2 239n.17

Théodoret de Cyr Commentaire du Cantique PG 81, col. 33c, 37A: Prol. 243n.36, 244

Origène PG 17, col. 253–88 250n.57 PG 87/2, col. 1725 251n.62

Grégoire le Grand Commentaire sur le Cantique des cantiques SC 314, p. 71 246, 246n.45

SUPPLEMENTS TO VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68. Beentjes, P.C. The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew. A Text Edition of all Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and a Synopsis of all Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10767 3 69. Cook, J. The Septuagint of Proverbs – Jewish and/or Hellenistic Proverbs? Concerning the Hellenistic Colouring of LXX Proverbs. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10879 3 70,1 Broyles, G. and C. Evans (eds.). Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah. Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, I. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10936 6 (Vol. I); ISBN 90 04 11027 5 (Set ) 70,2 Broyles, G. and C. Evans (eds.). Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah. Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, II. 1997. ISBN 90 04 11026 7 (Vol. II); ISBN 90 04 11027 5 (Set ) 71. Kooij, A. van der. The Oracle of Tyre. The Septuagint of Isaiah 23 as Version and Vision. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11152 2 72. Tov, E. The Greek and Hebrew Bible. Collected Essays on the Septuagint. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11309 6 73. García Martínez, F. and Noort, E. (eds.). Perspectives in the Study of the Old Testament and Early Judaism. A Symposium in honour of Adam S. van der Woude on the occasion of his 70th birthday. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11322 3 74. Kassis, R.A. The Book of Proverbs and Arabic Proverbial Works. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11305 3 75. Rösel, H.N. Von Josua bis Jojachin. Untersuchungen zu den deuteronomistischen Geschichtsbüchern des Alten Testaments. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11355 5 76. Renz, Th. The Rhetorical Function of the Book of Ezekiel. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11362 2 77. Harland, P.J. and Hayward, C.T.R. (eds.). New Heaven and New Earth Prophecy and the Millenium. Essays in Honour of Anthony Gelston. 1999. ISBN 90 04 10841 6 78. Kraàovec, J. Reward, Punishment, and Forgiveness. The Thinking and Beliefs of Ancient Israel in the Light of Greek and Modern Views. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11443 2. 79. Kossmann, R. Die Esthernovelle – Vom Erzählten zur Erzählung. Studien zur Traditionsund Redaktionsgeschichte des Estherbuches. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11556 0. 80. Lemaire, A. and M. Sæbø (eds.). Congress Volume, Oslo 1998. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11598 6. 81. Galil, G. and M. Weinfeld (eds.). Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography. Presented to Zecharia Kallai. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11608 7 82. Collins, N.L. The library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11866 7 83,1 Collins, J.J. and P.W. Flint (eds.). The Book of Daniel. Composition and Reception, I. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11675 3 (Vol. I); ISBN 90 04 12202 8 (Set ). 83,2 Collins, J.J. and P.W. Flint (eds.). The Book of Daniel. Composition and Reception, II. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12200 1 (Vol. II); ISBN 90 04 12202 8 (Set ). 84. Cohen, C.H.R. Contextual Priority in Biblical Hebrew Philology. An Application of the Held Method for Comparative Semitic Philology. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11670 2 (In preparation). 85. Wagenaar, J.A. Judgement and Salvation. The Composition and Redaction of Micah 2-5. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11936 1 86. McLaughlin, J.L. The Marz¿aÈ in sthe Prophetic Literature. References and Allusions in Light of the Extra-Biblical Evidence. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12006 8

87. Wong, K.L. The Idea of Retribution in the Book of Ezekiel 2001. ISBN 90 04 12256 7 88. Barrick, W. Boyd. The King and the Cemeteries. Toward a New Understanding of Josiah’s Reform. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12171 4 89. Frankel, D. The Murmuring Stories of the Priestly School. A Retrieval of Ancient Sacerdotal Lore. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12368 7 90. Frydrych, T. Living under the Sun. Examination of Proverbs and Qoheleth. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12315 6 91. Kessel, J. The Book of Haggai. Prophecy and Society in Early Persian Yehud. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12368 7 92. Lemaire, A. (ed.). Congress Volume, Basel 2001. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12680 5 93. Rendtorff, R. and R.A. Kugler (eds.). The Book of Leviticus. Composition and Reception. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12634 1 94. Paul, S.M., R.A. Kraft, L.H. Schiffman and W.W. Fields (eds.). Emanuel. Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13007 1 95. Vos, J.C. de. Das Los Judas. Über Entstehung und Ziele der Landbeschreibung in Josua 15. ISBN 90 04 12953 7 96. Lehnart, B. Prophet und König im Nordreich Israel. Studien zur sogenannten vorklassischen Prophetie im Nordreich Israel anhand der Samuel-, Elija- und ElischaÜberlieferungen. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13237 6 97. Lo, A. Job 28 as Rhetoric. An Analysis of Job 28 in the Context of Job 22-31. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13320 8 98. Trudinger, P.L. The Psalms of the Tamid Service. A Liturgical Text from the Second Temple. 2004. ISBN 90 04 12968 5 99. Flint, P.W. and P.D. Miller, Jr. (eds.) with the assistance of A. Brunell. The Book of Psalms. Composition and Reception. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13842 8 100. Weinfeld, M. The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13749 1 101. Flint, P.W., J.C. VanderKam and E. Tov. (eds.) Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, and the Septuagint. Essays Presented to Eugene Ulrich on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13738 6 102. Meer, M.N. van der. Formation and Reformulation. The Redaction of the Book of Joshua in the Light of the Oldest Textual Witnesses. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13125 6 103. Berman, J.A. Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible. Battle Stories and Their Equivalent Non-battle Narratives. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13119 1 104. Keulen, P.S.F. van. Two Versions of the Solomon Narrative. An Inquiry into the Relationship between MT 1 Kgs. 2-11 and LXX 3 Reg. 2-11. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13895 1 105. Marx, A. Les systèmes sacrificiels de l’Ancien Testament. Forms et fonctions du culte sacrificiel à Yhwh. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14286 X 106. Assis, E. Self-Interest or Communal Interest. An Ideology of Leadership in the Gideon, Abimelech and Jephthah Narritives ( Judg 6-12). 2005. ISBN 90 04 14354 8 107. Weiss, A.L. Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative. Metaphor in the Book of Samuel. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14837 X 108. Wagner, T. Gottes Herrschaft. Eine Analyse der Denkschrift (Jes 6, 1-9,6). 2006. ISBN 90 04 14912 0 109. Lemaire, A. (ed.). Congress Volume Leiden 2004. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14913 9 110. Goldman, Y.A.P., A. van der Kooij and R.D. Weis (eds.). Sôfer Mahîr. Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker Offered by Editors of Biblia Hebraica Quinta. (in production). ISBN 90 04 15016 1.

Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Septuagint and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Septuagint and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Song of Songs: A Close Reading (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

A People Tall and Smooth-Skinned (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Philip: Apostle and Evangelist : Configurations of a Tradition (Supplements to Novum Testamentum) (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

The Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew (Supplements to Novum Testamentum) (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zechariah Kallai (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Idea of Retribution in the Book of Ezekiel (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Torah as Teacher: The Exemplary Torah Student in Psalm 119 (Supplements to the Vetus Testamentum)

Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The King and the Cemeteries: Toward a New Understanding of Josiah's Reform (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Animal Imagery in the Book of Proverbs (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Compositional Strategy of the Book of Judges (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Christ and the Law in Paul (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

James the Just and Christian Origins (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Philodemus and the New Testament World (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Philodemus and the New Testament World (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

La representation du divin dans les recits du Pentateuque : Mediations syntaxiques et narratives (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to Honour Professor John Emerton for His Eightieth Birthday (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, 135)

Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Septuagint and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Septuagint and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Song of Songs: A Close Reading (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

A People Tall and Smooth-Skinned (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Philip: Apostle and Evangelist : Configurations of a Tradition (Supplements to Novum Testamentum) (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

The Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew (Supplements to Novum Testamentum) (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zechariah Kallai (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Idea of Retribution in the Book of Ezekiel (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Torah as Teacher: The Exemplary Torah Student in Psalm 119 (Supplements to the Vetus Testamentum)

Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The King and the Cemeteries: Toward a New Understanding of Josiah's Reform (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Animal Imagery in the Book of Proverbs (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Compositional Strategy of the Book of Judges (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Christ and the Law in Paul (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

James the Just and Christian Origins (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Philodemus and the New Testament World (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

Philodemus and the New Testament World (Supplements to Novum Testamentum)

La representation du divin dans les recits du Pentateuque : Mediations syntaxiques et narratives (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to Honour Professor John Emerton for His Eightieth Birthday (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, 135)

Recommend Documents